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TiUil LAST OM THE DlilllDb 



A CHILD'S 



History of England. 



BY 



CHARLES DICKENS. 



WITH 



TWENTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS BY A. DE NEUVILLE, 
EMILE BAYARD, F. LIX, AND OTHERS. 



NEW EDITION. 



BOSTON: 
ESTES AND LAURIAT, 

299-305 Washington Street. 






^?cU 




By Blx change 
Army And Navy Qiofc 
ug, 13,1929 



TiTB-LE OF THE REIGNS. 



BEGINNING WITH KING ALFRED THE GRE\T. 



THE SAXONS. 



The Reign of Alfred the Great . began in 871 

The Reign of Edward the Elder . began in 901 

The Reign of Athelstan .... began in 925 

The Reigns of the Six Boy-Kings began in 941 



ended in 901 . and lasted 30 yrs. 

ended in 925 . and lasted 24 yrs. 

ended in 941 . ami lasted 10 yrs. 

ended in 1016 . and lasted 75 yrs. 



THE DANES, AND THE RESTORED SAXONS. 



The Reign of Canute began in 1016 . ended in 1035 

The Reign of Harold Harefoot . began in 1035 . ended in 1040 

The Reign of Hardicanure . . . began in 1040 . ended in 1042 

T1 fessor gn °f EllWard theC ° n ~ I began in 1042 • ended in 1066 



and lasted 19 yrs. 
and lasted 5 yrs. 
and lasted 2 yrs. 

and lasted 24 yrs. 



The Reign of Harold the Second, and the Norman Conquest, were also 
within the year 1066. 

THE NORMANS. 

The Reign of William the First, I . . -.„„,, , , . .,„_ ,, . , „, 

called the Conqueror \\ De g an m 1066 • ended m 1087 . and lasted 21 yrs. 

T omf,1alle!f l^ifus aU1 . th ? SeC ~ J began in 1087 ■ ended in 110 ° ■ and lasted 13 y rs - 

T ealle P i g AnlsdIolar the 5^', I began in 110 ° ' ended in 1135 " and lasted 35 ? vs - 
The Reigns of Matilda and) . „„ . 110 „ , ,. ..._. ,, , , 1fl 

Stephen .... .I ue g an ™ H35 . ended m 1154 . and lasted 19 yrs. 



THE PLANTAGENETS. 



The Reign of Henry the Second . 
The Reign of Richard the First, I 

called the Lion-Heart . . . ( 
The Reign of John, called Lack- \ 

land ) 

The Reign of Henry the Third . 
The Reign of Edward the First, ) 

called Longshanks . . . . ) 
The Reign of Edward the Second 
The Reign of Edward the Third . 
The Reign of Richard the Second 
The Reign of Henry the Fourth, ) 

ealie'i Bolingbroke . . . . j 
The Reign of Henry the Fifth . 
The Reign of Henry the Sixth . 
The Reign of Edward the Fourth 



began 
began 

began 

began 

began 

began 
began 
began 



in 1154 
in 1189 

in lf99 

in 1216 

in 1272 

in 1307 
in 1327 
in 1377 



ended in 1189 
ended in 1199 



began in 1399 
began 



in 1413 
in 1422 
in 1461 



began 
be^an 

The Reign of Edward the Fifth . began in 1483 

The Reign of Richard the Third began in 1483 



ended 

ended 

ended 

ended 
ended 
ended 

ended 

ended 
ended 
ended 

ended 

ended 



in 1216 

in 1272 

in 1307 

in 1327 
in 1377 
in 1399 

in 1413 

in 1422 
in 1461 
in 1483 

in 1483 

in 1485 



, and lasted 35 yrs. 
and lasted 10 yrs. 

and lasted 17 yrs. 

and lasted 56 yrs. 

and lasted 35 yrs. 

and lasted 20 yrs. 
and lasted 50 yrs. 
and lasted 22 yrs. 

and lasted 14 yrs. 

and lasted 9 yrs. 

and lasted 39 yrs. 

and lasted 22 yrs. 
I and lasted a 
| few weeks. 

and lasted 2 yrs. 



JV 



TABLE OF THE REIGNS. 



THE TUDORS. 

The Reign of Henry the Seventh began in 1485 . ended in 1509 . and lasted 24 yrs. 
The Keign of Henry the Eighth . began in 1509 . ended in 1547 . and lasted 38 yrs. 
The Keign of Edward the (Sixth . began in 1547 . ended in 1553 . and lasted 6 yrs. 

The Keign of Mary began in 1553 . ended in 1558 . and lasted 5 yrs. 

The Keign of Elizabeth .... began in 1558 . ended in 1003 . and lasted 45 yrs. 



The Reign of James the First 
The Reign of Charles the First 



THE STUARTS. 

. began in 1603 . ended in 1625 . and lasted 22 yrs. 
. began in 1625 . ended in 1649 . and lasted 24 yrs. 



THE COMMONWEALTH. 

The Council of State and Gov- 1 b in 16i9 . emled in 1653 

ernment by Parliament ■ . J 
The Protectorate of Oliver I b in 1653 ended in 1658 

Cromwell ) & 

T C e romwell Ct ° rate ° f Kicbard J began in 1658 . ended in 1659 
T eSb^^ 



and lasted 4 yrs. 

and lasted 5 yrs. 

| and lasted seven 
( months, 

j and lasted thir- 
i teen months. 



THE STUARTS RESTORED. 



The Reign of Charles the Second began in 1660 
The Reign of James the Second . began in 1685 



ended in 1685 
ended in 1688 



and lasted 25 yrs. 
and lasted 3 yrs. 



THE REVOLUTION— 1688. (Comprised in the concluding chapter.) 
T Mar 61 !" ° f William IIX ' and } began in 1689 . ended in 1695 . and lasted 6 yrs. 

The Reign' of William III*. .' .' ended in 1702 . and lasted 13 yrs. 

The Heign of Anne began in 1702 . ended in 1714 . and lasted 12 yrs. 

The Reign of George the First . began in 1714 . ended in 1727 . and lasted 13 yrs. 
The Reign of George the Second . began in 1727 . ended in 1760 . and lasted 33 yrs. 
The Keign of George the Third . began in 1760 . ended in 1820 . and lasted 60 yrs. 
The Reign of George the Fourth began in 1820 . ended in 1830 . and lasted 10 yrs. 
The Keign of William the Fourth began in 1830 . ended in 1837 . and lasted 7 yrs. 
The Reign of Victoria .... began in 1837. 



CHKONOLOGICAL TABLE, AND TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGB 

CHAPTER I. Ancient England and the Romans. From 50 years 
before Christ, to the Year of our Lord 450 1 



CHAPTER II. Ancient England under the Early Saxons. From 
the year 450, to the year 871 12 

CHAPTER III. England under the Good Saxon Alfred, and 
Edward the Elder. From the year 871, to the year 901 .... 18 

CHAPTER IV. England under Athelstan and the six Boy-Kings. 
From the year 925, to the year 1016 25 

CHAPTER V. England under Canute the Dane. From the year 
1016, to the year 1035 38 

CHAPTER VI. England under Harold Harefoot, Hardicanute, 
and Edward the Confessor. From the year 1035, to the year 1066 41 

CHAPTER VII. England under Harold the Second, and Con- 
quered by the Normans. All in the same year, 1066 50 

CHAPTER VIII. England under William the First, the Norman 
Conqueror. From the year 1066, to the year 1087 55 

CHAPTER IX. England under William the Second, called Ru- 
fus. From the year 1087, to the year 1100 64 

CHAPTER X. England under Henry the First, called Fine- 
Scholar. From the year 1100, to the year 1135 . 72 

CHAPTER XI. England under Matilda and Stephen. From the 
year 1135, to the year 1154 83 



VI CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE, AND TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XII. Parts First and Second. England under Henry 
the Second. From the year 1154, to the year 1189 88 

CHAPTER XIII. England under Richard the First, called the 
Lion-Heart. From the year 1189, to the year 1199 110 

CHAPTER XIV. England under John, called Lackland. From 

the year 1199, to the year 1216 121 

CHAPTER XV. England under Henry the Third. From the year 
1216, to the year 1272 . 135 

CHAPTER XVI. England under Edward the First, called 
Longshanks. From the year 1272, to the year 1307 149 

CHAPTER XVII. England under Edward the Second. From the 
year 1307, to the year 1327 . 168 

CHAPTER XVIII. England under Edward the Third. From the 
year 1327, to the year 1377 179 

CHAPTER XIX. England under Richard the Second. From the 
year 1377, to the year 1399 194 

CHAPTER XX. England under Henry the Fourth, called Boling- 
broke. From the year 1399, to the year 1413 206 

CHAPTER XXI. Parts First and Second. England under Henry 
the Fifth. From the year 1413, to the year 1422 213 

CHAPTER XXII. Parts First, Second (The Story of Joan of Arc), and 
Third. England under Henry the Sixth. From the year 1422, 
to the year 1461 225 

CHAPTER XXIII. England under Edward the Fourth. From 
the year 1461, to the year 1483 247. 

CHAPTER XXIV. England under Edward the Fifth. For a few 
weeks in the year 1483 256 

CHAPTER XXV. England under Richard the Third. From the 
year 1483, to the year 1485 262 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE, AND TABLE OF CONTENTS, vii 

CHAPTER XXVI. England under Henry the Seventh. From the 
year 1485, to the year 1509 267 

CHAPTER XXVII. England under Henry the Eighth, called 
Bluff King-TLal and Burly King Harry. From the year 1509, 
to the year 1533 279 

CHAPTER XXVIII. England under Henry the Eighth, called 
Bluff King Hal and Burly King Harry. From the year 1533, 
to the year 1547 293 

CHAPTER XXLX. England under Edward the Sixth. From the 
year 1547, to the year 1553 305 

CHAPTER XXX. England under Mary. From the year 1553, to 
the year 1558 314 

CHAPTER XXXI. Parts First, Second, and Third. England under 
Elizabeth. From the year 1558, to the year 1603 329 

CHAPTER XXXII. Parts First and Second. England under James 
the First. From the year 1603, to the year 1625 357 

CHAPTER XXXIH. Parts First, Second,Third, and Fourth. England 
under Charles the First. From the year 1625, to the year 1649 . 376 

CHAPTER XXXIV. Parts First and Second. England under 
Oliver Cromwell. From the year 1649, to the year 1660 . . . .409 

CHAPTER XXXV. Parts First and Second. England under Charles 
the Second, called the Merry Monarch. From the year 1660, 
to the year 1685 428 

CHAPTER XXXVI. England under James the Second. From 
the year 1685, to the year 1688 453 

CHAPTER XXXVII. Conclusion. From the year 1688, to the year 1837 469 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



The Last of the Druids Frontispiece 

ROWENA AND VORTIGERN 13 

Alfred promised the MSS. by his Mother .... 18 

The Murder of Edward in 978 31 

Harold's Body Found 54 

azelin forbidding the burial of wllliam .... 62 

Escape of the Empress Maud 84 

The Crusaders' March 113 

Hubert de Burgh awaiting his Enemies 138 

Attempt on Edward's Life 150 

Shakespeare's Tomb . . . . , 172 

Death of Edward III 191 

Body of Richard II. interred at Westminster . . 205 

The Maid of Orleans 230 

Confession of Perkin Warbeck 275 

Henry commanded the astonished Prelate to cele- 
brate his Marriage 292 

Death of Anne Askew 303 

Elizabeth's Coronation Procession 329 

Naval Engagement, time of Elizabeth . . . . • 352 

Execution of Sir Walter Raleigh 372 

Arrest of the King 400 

" YOU CANNOT PASS," SAID THE SENTINELS 424 

The great Fire in London 436 

Death of Charles II 452 



CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER I. 

ANCIENT ENGLAND AND THE ROMANS. 

If you look at a Map of the World, you will see, in the 
left-hand upper corner of the Eastern Hemisphere, two Islands 
lying in the sea. They are England and Scotland, and Ire- 
land. England and Scotland form the greater part of these 
Islands. Ireland is the next in size. The little neighboring 
islands, which are so small upon the Map as to be mere dots, 
are chiefly little bits of Scotland — broken off, I dare say, in 
the course of a great length of time, by the power of the 
restless water. 

In the old clays, a long, long while ago, before Our Saviour 
was born on earth and la}' asleep in a manger, these Islands 
were in the same place, and the stormy sea roared round 
them, just as it roars now. But the sea was not alive, then, 
with great ships and brave sailors, sailing to and from all 
parts of the world. It was very lonely. The Islands la}' 
solitary, in the great expanse of water. The foaming waves 
dashed against their cliffs, and the bleak winds blew over 
their forests ; but the winds and waves brought no adventur- 
ers to land upon the Islands, and the savage Islanders knew 
nothing of the rest of the world, and the rest of the world 
knew nothing of them. 

It is supposed that the Phoenicians, who were an ancient 
people, famous for carrying on trade, came in ships to these 

l 



2 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Islands, and found that they produced tin and lead ; both very 
useful things, as you know, and both produced to this very 
hour upon the sea-coast. The most celebrated tin mines in 
Cornwall are, still, close to the sea. One of them, which I 
have seen, is so close to it that it is hollowed out underneath 
the ocean ; and the miners say, that in stormy weather, when 
they are at work down in that deep place, they can hear the 
noise of the waves thundering above their heads. So, the 
Phoenicians, coasting about the Islands, would come, without 
much difficulty, to where the tin and lead were. 

The Phoenicians traded with the Islanders for these metals, 
and gave the Islanders some other useful things in exchange. 
The Islanders were, at first, poor savages, going almost na- 
ked, or only dressed in the rough skins of beasts, and stain- 
ing their bodies, as other savages do, With colored earths and 
the juices of plants. But the Phoenicians, sailing over to the 
opposite coasts of France and Belgium, and saying to the peo- 
ple there, "We have been to those white cliffs across the 
water, which you can see in fine weather, and from that 
country, which is called Britain, we bring this tin and lead," 
tempted some of the French and Belgians to come over also. 
These people settled themselves on the south coast of Eng- 
land, which is now called Kent ; and, although they were a 
rough people too, they taught the savage Britons some useful 
arts, and improved that part of the Islands. It is probable 
that other people came over from Spain to Ireland, and set- 
tled there. 

Thus, by little and little, strangers became mixed with the 
Islanders, and the savage Britons grew into a wild, bold peo- 
ple ; almost savage, still, especially in the interior of the coun- 
try away from the sea where the foreign settlers seldom went ; 
but hardy, brave, and strong. 

The whole country was covered with forests and swamps. 
The greater part of it was very misty and cold. There were 
no roads, no bridges, no streets, no houses that you would 
think deserving of the name. A town was nothing but a 



ANCIENT ENGLAND AND THE ROMANS. 3 

collection of straw-covered huts, hidden in a thick wood,. with 
a ditch all round, and a low wall, made of mud, or the trunks 
of trees placed one upon another. The people planted little 
or no corn^Jhut lived upon the flesh of their flocks and cattle. 
They made no coins, but used metal rings for money. They 
were clever in basket-work, as savage people often are ; and 
the t y could make a coarse kind of cloth, and some \evy bad 
earthenware. But in building fortresses they were much more 
clever. 

They made boats of basket-work, covered with the skins of 
animals, but seldom, if ever, ventured far from the shore. 
They made swords, of copper mixed with tin ; but these 
swords were of an awkward shape, and so soft that a heavy 
blow would bend one. The}^ made light shields, short pointed 
daggers, and spears — which they jerked back after they had 
thrown them at an enemy, by a long strip of leather fastened 
to the stem. The butt-end was a rattle, to frighten an ene- 
my's horse. The ancient Britons, being divided into as many 
as thirty or forty tribes, each commanded by its own little 
king, were constantly fighting with one another, as savage 
people usually do, and the}' always fought with these wea- 
pons. 

They were verj T fond of horses. The standard of Kent was 
the picture of a white horse. They could break them in and 
manage them wonderfully well. Indeed, the horses (of 
which the}' had an abundance, though they were rather small) 
were so well taught in those days, that they can scarcely be 
said to have improved since ; though the men are so much 
wiser. They understood, and obe} T ed, every word of com- 
mand ; and would stand still by themselves, in all the din 
and noise of battle, while their masters went to fight on foot. 
The Britons could not have succeeded in their most re- 
markable art, without the aid of these sensible and trusty 
animals. The art I mean, is the construction and manage- 
ment of war-chariots or cars, for which they have ever been 
celebrated in history. Each of the best sort of these chariots, 



4 A, CHILD'S HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. 

not quite breast high in front, and open at the back, con- 
tained one man to drive, and two or three others to fight — 
all standing up. The horses who drew them were so well 
trained, that they would tear at full gallop, over the most 
stony ways, and even through the woods ; clashing down their 
master's enemies beneath their hoofs, and cutting them to 
pieces with the blades of swords or scythes, which were 
fastened to the wheels, and stretched out beyond the car on 
each side, for that cruel purpose. In a moment, while at full 
speed, the horses would stop, at the driver's command. The 
men within would leap out, deal blows about them with their 
swords like hail, leap on the horses, on the pole, spring back 
into the chariots anyhow ; and, as soon as they were safe, 
the horses tore awa}^ again. 

The Britons had a strange and terrible religion, called the 
Religion of the Druids. It seems to have been brought 
over, in very early times indeed, from the opposite country 
of France, anciently called Gaul, and to have mixed up the 
worship of the Serpent, and of the sun and moon, with the 
worship of some of the Heathen Gods and Goddesses. 
Most of its ceremonies were kept secret by the priests, the 
Druids, who pretended to be enchanters, and who carried 
magicians' wands, and wore, each of them, about his neck, 
what he told the ignorant people was a Serpent's egg in a 
golden case. But it is certain that the Druidical ceremo- 
nies included the sacrifice of human victims, the torture of 
some suspected criminals, and, on particular occasions, even 
the burning alive in immense wicker cages, of a number of 
men and animals together. The Druid Priests had some kind 
of veneration for the Oak, and for the mistletoe — the same 
plant that we hang up in houses at Christmas Time now — 
when its white berries grew upon the Oak. They met to- 
gether in dark woods, which they called sacred groves ; and 
there they instructed, in their mysterious arts, young men 
who came to them as pupils, and who sometimes stayed with 
them as long as twenty years. 



ANCIENT ENGLAND AND THE ROMANS. 5 

These Druids built great Temples and altars, open to the 
sky, fragments of some of which are yet remaining. Stone- 
henge, on Salisbury Plain, in Wiltshire, is the most extraor- 
dinary of these. Three curious stones, called Kits Coty 
House, on Bluebell Hill, near Maidstone, in Kent, form an- 
other. We know, from examination of the great blocks of 
which such buildings are made, that they could not have been 
raised without the aid of some ingenious machines, which are 
common now, but which the ancient Britons certainly did not 
use in making their own uncomfortable houses. I should not 
wonder if the Druids, and their pupils who sta} T ed with them 
twenty years, knowing more than the rest of the Britons, kept 
the people out of sight while they made these buildings, and 
then pretended that they built them by magic. Perhaps 
they had a hand in the fortresses too ; at all events, as they 
were very powerful, and very much believed in, and as they 
made and executed the laws, and paid no taxes, I don't won- 
der that they liked their trade. And, as they persuaded the 
people the more Druids there were, the better off the people 
would be, I don't wonder that there were a good many of 
them. But it is pleasant to think that there are no Druids, 
now, who go on in that waj T , and pretend to carry Enchanters' 
Wands and Serpents' Eggs — and of course there is nothing 
of the kind, an} T where. 

Such was the improved condition of the ancient Britons, 
fifty-five years before the birth of Our Saviour, when the Ro- 
mans, under their great General, Julius Caesar, were masters 
of all the rest of the known world. Julius Caesar had then just 
conquered Gaul ; and hearing, in Gaul, a good deal about the 
opposite Island with the white cliffs, and about the bravery 
of the Britons who inhabited it — some of whom had been 
fetched over to help the Gauls in the war against him — he re- 
solved, as he was so near, to come and conquer Britain next. 

So, Julius Caesar came sailing over to this island of ours, 
with eighty vessels and twelve thousand men. And he came 
from the French coast between Calais and Boulogne, " be- 



6 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

cause thence was the shortest passage into Britain ; " just for 
the same reason as our steam-boats now take the same track, 
ever}' day. He expected to conquer Britain easily : but it 
was not such easy work as he supposed — for the bold Britons 
fought most bravely ; and, what with not having his horse- 
soldiers with him (for the}' had been driven back by a storm), 
and what with having some of his vessels dashed to pieces by 
a high tide after they were drawn ashore, he ran great risk 
of being totally defeated. However, for once that the bold 
Britons beat him, he beat them twice ; though not so soundly 
but that he was very glad to accept their proposals of peace, 
and go away. 

But, in the spring of the next year, he came back ; this 
time, with eight hundred vessels and thirty thousand men. 
The British tribes chose, as their general-in- chief, a Briton, 
whom the Romans in their Latin language called Cassivel- 
launus, but whose British name is supposed to have been 
Caswallon. A brave general he was, and well he and his 
soldiers fought the Roman army ! So well, that whenever in 
that war the Roman soldiers saw a great cloud of dust, and 
heard the rattle of the rapid British chariots, they trembled 
in their hearts. Besides a number of smaller battles, there 
was a battle fought near Canterbury, in Kent ; there was a 
battle fought near Chertse}', in Surrey ; there was a battle 
fought near a marshy little town in a wood, the capital of that 
part of Britain which belonged to Cassivellaunus, and which 
was probably near what is now St. Albans, in Hertfordshire. 
However, brave Cassivellaunus had the worst of it, on the 
whole ; though he and his men always fought like lions. As 
the other British chiefs were jealous of him, and were alwa} r s 
quarrelling with him, and with one another, he gave up, and 
proposed peace. Julius Caesar was ver}' glad to grant peace 
easily, and to go away again with all his remaining ships and 
men. He had expected to find pearls in Britain, and he may 
have found a few for anything I know ; but, at all events, he 
found delicious oysters, and I am sure he found tough Britons 



ANCIENT ENGLAND AND THE ROMANS. 7 

— of whom, I dare say, he made the same complaint as Na- 
poleon Bonaparte the great French General did, eighteen 
hundred years afterwards, when he said they were such un- 
reasonable fellows that the} 7 never knew when they were 
beaten. Theyllever did know, I believe, and never will. 

Nearly a hundred years passed on, and all that time there 
was peace in Britain. The Britons improved their towns and 
mode of life : became more civilized, travelled, and learnt a 
great deal from the Gauls and Romans. At last, the Roman 
Emperor, Claudius, sent Aulus Plautius, a skilful general, 
with a might} T force, to subdue the Island, and shortly after- 
wards arrived himself. They did little ; and Ostorius Scap- 
ula, another general, came. Some of the British Chiefs of 
Tribes submitted. Others resolved to fight to the death. 
Of these brave men, the bravest was Caractacus or Caradoc, 
who gave battle to the Romans, with his army, among the 
mountains of North Wales. " This day," said he to his sol- 
diers, "decides the fate of Britain! Your liberty, or your 
eternal slavery, dates from this hour-. Remember your brave 
ancestors, who drove the great Caesar himself across the sea ! " 
On hearing these words, his men, with a great shout, rushed 
upon the Romans. But the strong Roman swords and armor 
were too much for the weaker British weapons in close con- 
flict. The Britons lost the day. The wife and daughter of 
the brave Caractacus were taken prisoners ; his brothers de- 
livered themselves up ; he himself was betrayed into the hands 
of the Romans by his false and base stepmother ; and they 
carried him, and all his family, in triumph to Rome. 

But a great man will be great in misfortune, great in prison, 
great in chains. His noble air, and dignified endurance of 
distress, so touched the Roman people who thronged the 
streets to see him, that he and his family were restored to 
freedom. No one knows whether his great heart broke, and 
he died in Rome, or whether he ever returned to his own 
dear country. English oaks have grown up from acorns, and 
withered away, when they were hundreds of years old — and 



8 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

other oaks have sprung up in their places, and died too, very 
aged — since the rest of the history of the brave Caractacus 
was forgotten. 

Still, the Britons would not yield. The}' rose again and 
again, and died by thousands, sword in hand. They rose, 
on ever} r possible occasion. Suetonius, another Roman 
general, came, and stormed the Island of Anglesey (then 
called Mona) which was "supposed to be sacred, and he burnt 
the Druids in their own wicker cages, by their own fires. 
But, even while he was in Britain, with his victorious troops, 
the Britons rose. Because Boadicea, a British queen, the 
widow of the King of the Norfolk and Suffolk people, resisted 
the plundering of her property by the Romans who were set- 
tled in England, she was scourged, by order of Catus, a Ro- 
man officer ; and her two daughters were shamefully insulted 
in her presence, and her husband's relations were made slaves. 
To avenge this injury, the Britons rose, with all their might 
and rage. They drove Catus into Gaul ; they laid the Roman 
possessions waste ; the} T forced the Romans out of London, 
then a poor little town, but a trading place ; they hanged, 
burnt, crucified, and slew by the sword, seventy thousand 
Romans in a few days. Suetonius strengthened his army, 
and advanced to give them battle. The}' strengthened their 
army, and desperately attacked his, on the field where it was 
strongly posted. Before the first charge of the Britons was 
made, Boadicea, in a war-chariot, with her fair hair stream- 
ing in the wind, and her injured daughters lying at her feet, 
drove among the troops, and cried to them for vengeance on 
their oppressors, the licentious Romans. The Britons fought 
to the last ; but they were vanquished with great slaughter, 
and the unhappy queen took poison. 

Still, the spirit of the Britons was not broken. When 
Suetonius left the country, they fell upon his troops, and re- 
took the Island of Anglesey. Agricola came, fifteen or 
twenty years afterwards, and retook it once more, and de- 
voted seven years to subduing the country, especially that 



ANCIENT ENGLAND AND THE ROMANS. 9 

part of it which is now called Scotland ; but its people, the 
Caledonians, resisted him at every inch of ground. They 
fought the bloodiest battles with him ; the} T killed their very 
wives and children, to prevent his making prisoners of them ; 
they fell, fighting, in such great numbers that certain hills in 
Scotland are yet supposed to be vast heaps of stones piled up 
above their graves. Hadrian came thiity } T ears afterwards, 
and still they resisted him. Severus came, nearly a hundred 
years afterwards, and they worried his great army like clogs, 
and rejoiced to see them die, by thousands, in the bogs and 
swamps. Caracalla, the son and successor of Severus, 
die] the most to conquer them, for a time ; but not by force 
of arms. He knew how little that would do. He yielded up 
a quantity of land to the Caledonians, and gave the Britons 
the same privileges as the Romans possessed. There was 
peace, after this, for sevem"y years. 

Then new enemies arose. They were the Saxons, a fierce, 
seafaring people from the countries to the North of the Rhine, 
the great river of Germany on the banks of which the best 
grapes grow to make the German wine. They began to come, 
in pirate ships, to the sea-coast of Gaul and Britain, and to 
plunder them. The} T were repulsed by Carausius, a native 
either of Belgium or of Britain, who was appointed by the 
Romans to the command, and under whom the Britons first 
began to fight upon the sea. But, after this time, they re- 
newed their ravages. A few } T ears more, and the Scots 
(which was then the name for the people of Ireland), and 
the Picts, a northern people, began to make frequent plunder- 
ing incursions into the South of Britain. All these attacks 
were repeated, at intervals, during two hundred years, and 
through a long succession of Roman Emperors and Chiefs ; 
during all which length of time, the Britons rose against the 
Romans, over and over again. At last in the da}'s of the 
Roman Honorius, when the Roman power all over the world 
was fast declining, and when Rome wanted all her soldiers at 
home, the Romans abandoned all hope of conquering Britain, 



10 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

and went away. And still, at last, as at first, the Britons 
rose against them, in their old brave manner ; for, a very 
little while before, they had turned away the Roman magis- 
trates, and declared themselves an independent people. 

Five hundred years had passed, since Julius Caesar's first 
invasion of the Island, when the Romans departed from it for 
ever. In the course of that time, although they had been 
the cause of terrible fighting and bloodshed, they had done 
much to improve the condition of the Britons. They had 
made great military roads ; they had built forts ; they had 
taught them how to dress, and arm themselves, much better 
than they had ever known how to do before ; they had refined 
the whole British way of living. Agricola had built a great 
wall of earth, more than seventy miles long, extending from 
Newcastle to beyond Carlisle, for the purpose of keeping out 
the Picts and Scots ; Hadrian had strengthened it ; Severus, 
finding it much in want of repair, had built it afresh of stone. 
Above all, it was in the Roman time, and by means of Roman 
ships, that the Christian Religion was first brought into Brit- 
ain, and its people first taught the great lesson that, to be 
good in the sight of God, they must love their neighbors as 
themselves, and do unto others as they would be done b}^. 
The Druids declared that it was ver}^ wicked to believe in any 
such thing, and cursed all the people who did believe it very 
heartily. But, when the people found that they were none 
the better for the blessings of the Druids, and none the worse 
for the curses of the Druids, but, that the sun shone and the 
rain fell without consulting the Druids at all, they just began 
to think that the Druids were mere men, and that it signified 
very little whether they cursed or blessed. After which, the 
pupils of the Druids fell off greatly in numbers, and the 
Druids took to other trades. 

Thus I have come to the end of the Roman time in England. 
It is but little that is known of those five hundred years ; but 
some remains of them are still found. Often, when laborers 
are digging up the ground, to make foundations for houses 



ANCIENT ENGLAND AND THE ROMANS. 11 

or churches, the}' light on rusty money that once belonged to 
the Romans. Fragments of plates from which they ate, of 
goblets from which they drank, and of pavement on which 
they trod, are^discovered among the earth that is broken by 
the plough, or the dust that is crumbled by the gardener's 
spade. Wells that the Romans sunk, still yield water ; roads 
that the Romans made, form part of our highways. In some 
old battle-fields, British spear-heads and Roman armor have 
been found, mingled together in decay, as they fell in the 
thick pressure of the fight. Traces of Roman camps over- 
grown with grass, and of mounds that are the burial-places 
of /heaps of Britons, are to be seen in almost all parts of the 
country. Across the bleak moors of Northumberland, the 
wall of Severus, overrun with moss and weeds, still stretches, 
a strong ruin ; and the shepherds and their dogs lie sleeping 
on it in the summer weather. On Salisbury Plain, Stonehenge 
yet stands : a monument of the earlier time when the Roman 
name was unknown in Britain, and when the Druids, with 
their best magic wands, could not have written it in the sands 
of the wild sea-shore. 



12 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER II. 

ANCIENT ENGLAND UNDER THE EARLY SAXONS. 

The Romans had scarcely gone away from Britain, when 
the Britons began to wish they had never left it. For, the 
Roman soldiers being gone, and the Britons being much re- 
duced in numbers by their long wars, the Picts and Scots 
came pouring in, over the broken and unguarded wall of 
Severus, in swarms. They plundered the richest towns, and 
killed the people ; and came back so often for more booty and 
more slaughter, that the unfortunate Britons lived a life of 
terror. As if the Picts and Scots were not bad enough on 
land, the Saxons attacked the islanders by sea; and, as if 
something more were still wanting to make them miserable, 
they quarrelled bitterly among themselves as to what prayers 
they ought to say, and how they ought to say them. The 
priests, being very angry with one another on these questions, 
cursed one another in the heartiest manner ; and (uncommonly 
like the old Druids) cursed all the people whom the}' could 
not persuade. So, altogether, the Britons were very badly 
off, you may believe. 

They were in such distress, in short, that they sent a letter 
to Rome entreating help — which the}' called the Groans of 
the Britons ; and in which they said, " The barbarians chase 
us into the sea, the sea throws us back upon the barbarians, 
and we have only the hard choice left us of perishing by the 
sword, or perishing by the waves." But the Romans could 
not help them, even if they were so inclined ; for they had 
enough to do to defend themselves against their own enemies, 
who were then very fierce and strong. At last, the Britons, 



ANCIENT ENGLAND UNDER THE EARLY SAXONS. 13 

unable to bear their hard condition any longer, resolved to 
make peace with the Saxons, and to invite the Saxons to 
come into their country, and help them to keep out the Picts 
and Scots. 

It was a British Prince named Vortigern who took this 
resolution, and who made a treaty of friendship with Hengist 
and Horsa, two Saxon chiefs. Both of these names, in the 
old Saxon language, signify Horse ; for the Saxons, like 
many other nations in a rough state, were fond of giving men 
the names of animals, as Horse, Wolf, Bear, Hound. The 
Indians of North America, — a very inferior people to the 
Saxons, though — do the same to this day. 

JIengist and Horsa drove out the Picts and Scots ; and 
Vortigern, being grateful to them for that service, made no 
opposition to their settling themselves in that part of England 
which is called the Isle of Thanet, or to their inviting over 
more of their countrymen to join them. But Hengist had a 
beautiful daughter named Rowena ; and, when at a feast, 
she filled a golden goblet to the brim with wine, and gave it 
to Vortigern, saying in a sweet voice, "Dear King, thy 
health ! " the King fell in love with her. My opinion is, that 
the cunning Hengist meant him to do so, in order that the 
Saxons might have greater influence with him ; and that the 
fair Rowena came to that feast, golden goblet and all, on 
purpose. 

At an}' rate, they were married ; and, long afterwards, 
whenever the King was angry with the Saxons, or jealous of 
their encroachments, Rowena would put her beautiful arms 
round his neck, and softly sa}-, "Dear King, they are un- 
people ! Be favorable to them, as jou loved that Saxon girl 
who gave 3-011 the golden goblet of wine at the feast ! " And, 
really, I don't see how the King could help himself. 

Ah ! We must all die ! In the course of } 7 ears, Vortigern 
died — he was dethroned, and put in prison, first, I am 
afraid ; and Rowena died ; and generations of Saxons and 
Britons died ; and events that happened during a long, long 



14 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

time, would have been quite forgotten but for the tales and 
songs of the old Bards, who used to go about from feast to 
feast, with their white beards, recounting the deeds of their 
forefathers. Among the histories of which the}' sang and 
talked, there was a famous one, concerning the bravery and 
virtues of King Arthur, supposed to have been a British 
Prince in those old times. But, whether such a person really 
lived, or whether there were several persons whose histories 
came to be confused together under that one name, or whether 
all about him was invention, no one knows. 

I will tell you, shortly, what is most interesting in the early 
Saxon times, as they are described in these songs and stories 
of the Bards. 

In, and long after, the da} r s of Vortigern, fresh bodies of 
Saxons, under various chiefs, came pouring into Britain. 
One body, conquering the Britons in the East, and settling 
there, called their kingdom Essex ; another body settled in 
the West and called their kingdom Wessex ; the Northfolk, 
or Norfolk people, established themselves in one place ; the 
Southfolk, or Suffolk people established themselves in an- 
other ; and gradually seven kingdoms or states arose in 
England, which were called the Saxon Heptarchy. The poor 
Britons, falling back before these crowds of fighting men 
whom they had innocently invited over as friends, retired into 
Wales and the adjacent country ; into Devonshire, and into 
Cornwall. Those parts of England long remained uncon- 
quered. And in Cornwall now — where the sea-coast is very 
gloomy, steep, and rugged — where, in the dark winter- time, 
ships have often been wrecked close to the land, and every 
soul on board has perished — where the winds and waves 
howl drearily, and split the solid rocks into arches and cav- 
erns — there are very ancient ruins, which the people call the 
ruins of King Arthur's Castle. 

Kent is the most famous of the seven Saxon kingdoms, 
because the Christian religion was preached to the Saxons 
there (who domineered over the Britons too much, to care for 



ANCIENT ENGLAND UNDER THE EARLY SAXONS. 15 

what they said about their religion, or anything else) by 
Augustine, a monk from Rome. King Ethelbert, of 
Kent, was soon converted ; and the moment he said he was 
a Christian, his courtiers all said they were Christians ; after 
which, ten thousand of his subjects said the}' were Chris- 
tians too. Augustine built a little church, close to this 
King's palace, on the ground now occupied by the beautiful 
cathedral of Canterbury. Sebert, the King's nephew, built 
on a muddy marshy place near London, where there had 
been a temple to Apollo, a church dedicated to Saint Peter, 
which is now Westminster Abbe} 7 . And, in London itself, 
on the foundation of a temple to Diana, he built another 
little church, which has risen up, since that old time, to be 
Sif. Paul's. 

After the death of Ethelbert, Edwin, King of Northum- 
bria, who was such a good king that it was said a woman or 
child might openly carry a purse of gold, in his reign, with- 
out fear, allowed his child to be baptized, and held a great 
council to consider whether he and his people should all be 
Christians or not. It was decided that the}' should be. Coifi, 
the chief priest of the old religion, made a great speech on 
the occasion. In this discourse, he told the people that he 
had found out the old gods to be impostors. "I am quite 
satisfied of it," he said. " Look at me ! I have been serv- 
ing them all my life, and they have clone nothing for me ; 
whereas, if they had been really powerful, they could not 
have decently done less, in return for all I have done for 
them, than make my fortune. As they have never made my 
fortune, I am quite convinced they are impostors ! " When 
this singular priest had finished speaking, he hastily armed 
himself with sword and lance, mounted a war-horse, rode at 
a furious gallop in sight of all the people to the temple, and 
flung his lance against it as an insult. From that time, the 
Christian religion spread itself among the Saxons, and be- 
came their faith. 

The next very famous prince was Egbert. He lived about 



16 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

a hundred and fifty years afterwards, and claimed to have a 
better right to the throne of Wessex than Beortric, another 
Saxon prince who was at the head of that kingdom, and who 
married Edburga, the daughter of Offa, king of another of 
the seven kingdoms. This Queen Edburga was a handsome 
murderess, who poisoned people when they offended her. 
One day, she mixed a cup of poison for a certain noble be- 
longing to the court ; but her husband drank of it too, by 
mistake, and died. Upon this, the people revolted, in great 
crowds ; and running to the palace, and thundering at the 
gates, cried, "Down with the wicked queen, who poisons 
men ! " The}^ drove her out of the country, and abolished 
the title she had disgraced. When years had passed away, 
some travellers came home from Italy, and said that in the 
town of Pa via they had seen a ragged beggar-woman, who 
had once been handsome, but was then shrivelled, bent, and 
3 r ellow, wandering about the streets, crying for bread ; and 
that this beggar-woman was the poisoning English queen. 
It was, indeed, Edburga ; and so she died, without a shelter 
for her wretched head. 

Egbert, not considering himself safe in England, in con- 
sequence of his having claimed the crown of Wessex (for 
he thought his rival might take him prisoner and put him to 
death), sought refuge at the court of Charlemagne, king of 
France. On the death of Beortric, so unhappily poisoned 
by mistake, Egbert came back to Britain ; succeeded to the 
throne of Wessex ; conquered some of the other monarchs 
of the seven kingdoms ; added their territories to his own ; 
and, for the first time, called the country over which he 
ruled, England. 

And now, new enemies arose, who, for a long time, trou- 
bled England sorely. These were the Northmen, the people 
of Denmark and Norway, whom the English called the Danes. 
They were a warlike people, quite at home upon the sea ; not 
Christians ; veiy daring and cruel. They came over in ships, 
and plundered and burned wheresoever they landed. Once 5j 



ANCIENT ENGLAND UNDER THE EARLY SAXONS. 17 

the} T beat Egbert in battle. Once, Egbert beat them. But 
they cared no more for being beaten than the English them- 
selves. In the four following short reigns, of Ethelwelf, 
and his sons, Ethelbald, Ethelbert, and Ethelred, they 
came back, over and oyer again, burning and plundering, 
and laying England waste. In the last-mentioned reign, 
they seized Edmund, King of East England, and bound him 
to a tree. Then, they proposed to him that he should change 
his religion ; but he, being a good Christian, steadily refused. 
Upon that, they beat him, made cowardly jests upon him, all 
defenceless as he was, shot arrows at him, and, finally struck 
off his head. It is impossible to say whose head they might 
have struck off next, but for the death of King Ethelred 
from a wound he had received in fighting against them, and 
the succession to his throne of the best and wisest king that 
ever lived in England. 



18 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER III. 

ENGLAND UNDER THE GOOD SAXON, ALFRED. 

Alfred the Great was a 3 T oung man, three-and-twenty 
3 r ears of age, when he became king. Twice in his child- 
hood, he had been taken to Rome, where the Saxon nobles 
were in the habit of going on journe} T s which they sup- 
posed to be religious ; and, once, he had staj-ed for some 
time in Paris. Learning, however, was so little cared for, 
then, that at twelve years old he had not been taught to 
read : although, of the sons of King Ethelwulf, he, the 
youngest, was the favorite. But he had — as most men 
who grow up to be great and good are generally found to 
have had — an excellent mother ; and, one day, this lacty, 
whose name was Osburga, happened, as she was sitting 
among her sons, to read a book of Saxon poetry. The art 
of printing was not known until long and long after that 
period, and the book, which was written, was what is called 
"illuminated," with beautiful bright letters, richly painted. 
The brothers admiring it very much, their mother said, "I 
will give it to that one of you four princes who first learns 
to read." Alfred sought out a tutor that very day, applied 
himself to learn with great diligence, and soon won the book. 
He was proud of it, all his life. 

This great king, in the first year of his reign, fought nine 
battles with the Danes. He made some treaties with them 
too, by which the false Danes swore they would quit the 
country. They pretended to consider that they had taken a 
very solemn oath, in swearing this upon the holy bracelets 
that they wore, and which were always buried with them 



ALFRED THE GREAT. 19 

when they died ; but they cared little for it, for they thought 
nothing of breaking oaths and treaties too, as soon as it 
suited their purpose, and coming back again to fight, plunder, 
and burn, as usual. One fatal winter, in the fourth year of 
King ALFREDis^reign, they spread themselves in great num- 
bers over the whole of England ; and so dispersed and routed 
the King's soldiers that the King was left alone, and was 
obliged to disguise himself as a common peasant, and to 
take refuge in the cottage of one of his cowherds who did 
not know his face. 

Here, King Alfred, while the Danes sought him far and 
near, was left alone one da} r , by the cowherd's wife, to watch 
some cakes which she put to bake upon the hearth. But, 
being at work upon his bow and arrows, with which he 
hoped to punish the false Danes when a brighter time should 
come, and thinking deeply of his poor unhappy subjects 
whom the Danes chased through the land, his noble mind 
forgot the cakes, and they were burnt. " What ! " said the 
cowherd's wife, who scolded him well when she came back, 
and little thought she was scolding the King, " you will be 
ready enough to eat them by-and-by, and yet you cannot 
watch them, idle clog?" 

At length, the Devonshire men made head against a new 
host of Danes who landed on their coasi ; killed their chief, 
and captured their flag ; on which was represented the like- 
ness of a Raven — a very fit bird for a thievish army like 
that, I think. The loss of their standard troubled the Danes 
greatly, for they believed it to be enchanted — woven by the 
three daughters of one father in a single afternoon — and 
they had a story among themselves that when they were vic- 
torious in battle, the Raven stretched his wings and seemed 
to fly ; and that when the}' were defeated, he would droop. 
He had good reason to droop, now, if he could have done 
anything half so sensible ; for, King Alfred joined the 
Devonshire men ; made a camp with them on a piece of firm 
ground in the midst of a bog in Somersetshire ; and prepared 



20 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

for a great attempt for vengeance on the Danes, and the 
deliverance of his oppressed people. 

But, first, as it was important to know how numerous 
those pestilent Danes were, and how they were fortified, 
King Alfred, being a good musician, disguised himself as 
a glee-man or minstrel, and went, with his harp, to the Da- 
nish camp. He played and sang in the very tent of Guthrum 
the Danish leader, and entertained the Danes as the}^ ca- 
roused. While he seemed to think of nothing but his music, 
he was watchful of their tents, their arms, their discipline, 
ever3 T thing that he desired to know. And right soon did this 
great king entertain them to a different tune ; for, summon- 
ing all his true followers to meet him at an appointed place, 
where they received him with joyful shouts and tears, as the 
monarch whom many of them had given up for lost or dead, 
he put himself at their head, marched on the Danish camp, 
defeated the Danes with great slaughter, and besieged them 
for fourteen days to prevent their escape. But, being as 
merciful as he was good and brave, he then, instead of kill- 
ing them, proposed peace : on condition that they should al- 
together depart from that Western part of England, and 
settle in the East; and that Guthrum should become a 
Christian, in remembrance of the Divine religion which now 
taught his conqueror, the noble Alfred, to forgive the enemy 
who had so often injured him. This, Guthrum did. At his 
baptism, King Alfred was his godfather. And Guthrum 
was an honorable chief who well deserved that clemency ; 
for, ever afterwards, he was loyal and faithful to the king. 
The Danes under him were faithful too. They plundered 
and burned no more, but worked like honest men. They 
ploughed, and sowed, and reaped, and led good honest Eng- 
lish lives. And I hope the children of those Danes played, 
many a time, with Saxon children in the sunny fields ; and 
that Danish young men fell in love with Saxon girls, and 
married them ; and that English travellers, benighted at the 
doors of Danish cottages, often went in for shelter until morn- 



ALFKED THE GEE AT. 21 

ing ; and that Danes and Saxons sat by the red fire, friends, 
talking of King Alfred the Great. 

All the Danes were not like these under Guthrum : for, 
after some years, more of them came over, in the old plun- 
dering and burning way — among them a fierce pirate of the 
name of Hastings, who had the boldness to sail up the 
Thames to Gravesend, with eighty ships. For three years, 
there was a war with these Danes ; and there was a famine in 
the country, too, and a plague, both upon human creatures 
and beasts. But King Alfred, whose mighty heart never 
failed him, built large ships nevertheless, with which to pur- 
sue the pirates on the sea ; and he encouraged his soldiers, by 
his, brave example, to fight valiantly against them on the 
shore. At last, he drove them all away ; and then there was 
repose in England. 

As great and good in peace, as he was great and good in 
war, King Alfred never rested from his labors to improve 
his people. He loved to talk with clever men, and with trav- 
ellers from foreign countries, and to write down what they 
told him, for his people to read. He had studied Latin after 
learning to read English, and now another of his labors was, 
to translate Latin books into the English-Saxon tongue, that 
his people might be interested, and improved by their con- 
tents. He made just laws, that they might live more happily 
and freely ; he turned awa,y all partial judges, that no wrong 
might be done them ; he was so careful of their property, and 
punished robbers so severely, that it was a common thing to 
say that under the great King Alfred, garlands of golden 
chains and jewels might have hung across the streets, and no 
man would have touched one. He founded schools ; he pa- 
tiently heard causes himself in his Court of Justice ; the great 
desires of his heart were, to do right to all his subjects, and 
to leave England better, wiser, happier in all ways, than he 
found it. His industry in these efforts was quite astonishing. 
Every day he divided into certain portions, and in each por- 
tion devoted himself to a certain pursuit. That he might 



22 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

divide his time exactly, be had wax torches or candles made, 
which were all of the same size, were notched across at regu- 
lar distances, and were always kept burning. Thus, as the 
caudles burned clown, he divided the day into notches, almost 
as accurately as we now divide it into hours upon the clock. 
But when the candles were first invented, it was found that 
the wind and draughts of air, blowing into the palace through 
the doors and windows, and through the chinks in the walls, 
caused them to gutter and burn unequally. To prevent this, 
the King had them put into cases formed of wood and white 
horn. And these were the first lanthorns ever made in 
England. 

All this time, he was afflicted with a terrible unknown dis- 
ease, which caused him violent and frequent pain that nothing 
could relieve. He bore it, as he had borne all the troubles 
of his life, like a brave good man, until he was fifty-three 
years old ; and then, having reigned thirty } r ears, he died. 
He died in the year nine hundred and one ; but, long ago as 
that is, his fame, and the love and gratitude with which his 
subjects regarded him, are freshly remembered to the pres- 
ent hour. 

In the next reign, which was the reign of Edward sur- 
named The Elder, who was chosen in council to succeed, a 
nephew of King Alfred troubled the country by trying to 
obtain the throne. The Danes in the East of England took 
part with this usurper (perhaps because they had honored his 
uncle so much, and honored him for his uncle's sake), and 
there was hard fighting ; but the King, with the assistance of 
his sister, gained the day, and reigned in peace for four and 
twenty years. He gradually extended his power over the 
whole of England, and so the Seven Kingdoms were united 
into one. 

When England thus became one kingdom, ruled over by 
one Saxon King, the Saxons had been settled in the country 
more than four hundred and fifty years. Great changes had 
taken place in its customs during that time. The Saxons 



ALFRED THE GREAT. 23 

were still greedy eaters and great drinkers, and their feasts 
were often of a noisy and drunken kind ; but many new com- 
forts and even elegances had become known, and were fast 
increasing. Hangings for the walls of rooms, where, in these 
modern clays, we paste up paper, are known to have been 
sometimes made^of silk, ornamented with birds and flowers in 
needlework. Tables and chairs were curiously carved in dif- 
ferent woods ; were sometimes decorated with gold or silver ; 
sometimes even made of those precious metals. Knives and 
spoons were used at table ; golden ornaments were worn — 
with silk and cloth, and golden tissues and embroideries ; 
dishes were made of gold and silver, brass and bone. There 
were varieties of drinking-horns, bedsteads, musical instru- 
ments. A harp was passed round, at a feast, like the drink- 
ing-bowl, from guest to guest ; and each one usually sang or 
played when his turn came. The weapons of the Saxons 
were stoutly made, and among them was a terrible iron ham- 
mer that gave deadry blows, and was long remembered. The 
Saxons themselves were a handsome people. The men were 
proud of their long fair hair, parted. on the forehead; their 
ample beards, their fresh complexions, and clear e} T es. The 
beauty of the Saxon women filled all England with a new 
delight and grace. 

I have more to tell of the Saxons yet, but I stop to say 
this now, because under the Great Alfred, all the best 
points of the English-Saxon character were first encouraged, 
and in him first shown. It has been the greatest character 
among the nations of the earth. Wherever the descendants 
of the Saxon race have gone, have sailed, or otherwise made 
their way, even to the remotest regions of the world, the}' 
have been patient, persevering, never to be broken in spirit, 
never to be turned aside from enterprises on which the} 7 have 
resolved. In Europe, Asia, Africa, America, the whole world 
over ; in the desert, in the forest, on the sea ; scorched by a 
burning sun, or frozen b} 7 ice that never melts ; the Saxon 
blood remains unchanged. Wheresoever that race goes, there 



24 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

law, and industry, and safety for life and property, and all 
the great results of steady perseverance, are certain to arise. 
I pause to think with admiration, of the noble king who, 
in his single person, possessed all the Saxon virtues. Whom 
misfortune could not subdue, whom prosperity could not 
spoil, whose perseverance nothing could shake. Who was 
hopeful in defeat, and generous in success. Who loved jus- 
tice, freedom, truth, and knowledge. Who, in his care to 
instruct his people, probably did more to preserve the beauti- 
ful old Saxon language, than I can imagine. Without whom, 
the English tongue in which I tell this story might have 
wanted half its meaning. As it is said that his spirit still 
inspires some of our best English laws, so, let you and I pray 
that it may animate our English hearts, at least to this — to 
resolve, when we see any of our fellow-creatures left in igno- 
rance, that we will do our best, while life is in us, to have 
them taught ; and to tell those rulers whose duty it is to 
teach them, and who neglect their duty, that they have prof- 
ited very little by all the years that have rolled away since 
the year nine hundred and one, and that they are far behind 
the bright example of King Alfred the Great. 



ATHELSTAN AND THE SIX BOY-KINGS. 25 



CHAPTER IV. 

ENGLAND UNDER ATHELSTAN AND THE SIX BOY-KINGS. 

Athelstan, the son of Edward the Elder, succeeded that 
king. He reigned only fifteen years ; but he remembered 
the glory of his grandfather, the great Alfred, and gov- 
erned England well. He reduced the turbulent people of 
Wales, and obliged them to pay him a tribute in money, and 
in cattle, and to send him their best hawks and hounds. He 
was victorious over the Cornish men, who were not yet quiet 
under the Saxon government. He restored such of the old 
laws as were good, and had fallen into disuse ; made some 
wise new laws, and took care of the poor and weak. A 
strong alliance, made against him bj^ Anlaf a Danish prince, 
Const antine King of the Scots, and the people of North 
Wales, he broke and defeated in one great battle, long famous 
for the vast numbers slain in it. After that, he had a quiet 
reign ; the lords and ladies about him had leisure to become 
polite and agreeable ; and foreign princes were glad (as they 
have sometimes been since) to come to England on visits to 
the English court. 

When Athelstan died, at forty-seven years old, his brother 
Edmund, who was only eighteen, became king. He was the 
first of six boy-kings, as you will presently know. 

They called him the Magnificent, because he showed a 
taste for improvement and refinement. But he was beset by 
the Danes, and had a short and troubled reign, which came 
to a troubled end. One night, when he was feasting in his 
hall, and had eaten much and drunk deep, he saw, among 
the company, a noted robber named Leof, who had been 



26 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

banished from England. Made very angry by the boldness 
of this man, the King turned to his cup-bearer, and said, 
" There is a robber sitting at the table yonder, who, for his 
crimes, is an outlaw in the land — a hunted wolf, whose life 
any man may take, at any time. Command that robber to 
depart!" " I will not depart ! " said Leof. "No?" cried 
the King. " No, by the Lord ! " said Leof. Upon that the 
King rose from his seat, and, making passionately at the 
robber, and seizing him by his long hair, tried to throw him 
down. But the robber had a dagger underneath his cloak, 
and, in the scuffle, stabbed the King to death. That done, 
he set his back against the wall, and fought so desperately, 
that although he was soon cut to pieces by the King's armed 
men, and the wall and pavement were splashed with his 
blood, yet it was not before he had killed and wounded many 
of them. You may imagine what rough lives the kings of 
those times led, when one of them could struggle, half drunk, 
with a public robber in tys own dining-hall, and be stabbed 
in the presence of the company who ate and drank with him. 

Then succeeded the bo}^-king Edred, who was weak and 
sickly in body, but of a strong mind. And his armies fought 
the Northmen, the Danes, and Norwegians, or the Sea-Kings, 
as they were called, and beat them for the time. And, in 
nine years, Edred died, and passed away. 

Then came the boy-king Edwy, fifteen years of age ; but 
the real king, who had the real power, was a monk named 
Dunstan — a clever priest, a little mad, and not a little 
proud and cruel. 

Dunstan was then Abbot of Glastonburj' Abbe}^, whither 
the body of King Edmund the Magnificent was carried, to be 
buried. While yet a boy, he had got out of his bed one 
night (being then in a fever) , and walked about Glastonbury 
Church when it was under repair ; and, because he did not 
tumble off some scaffolds that were there, and break his 
neck, it was reported that he had been shown over the build- 
ing by an angel. He had also made a harp that was- said to 



ATHELSTAN AND THE SIX BOY-KINGS. 27 

play of itself — which it verj 7 likely did, as ^Eolian Harps, 
which are played by the wind, and are understood now, 
alwaj'8 do. For these wonders he had been once denounced 
by his enemies, who were jealous of his favor with the late 
King Athelstajvas a magician ; and he had been waylaid, 
bound hand and foot, and thrown into a marsh. But he got 
out again, somehow, to cause a great deal of trouble yet. 

The priests of those days were, generally, the only scholars. 
They were learned in many things. Having to make their 
own convents and monasteries on uncultivated grounds that 
were granted to them by the Crown, it was necessary that 
they should be good farmers and good gardeners, or their 
lands would have been too poor to support them. For the 
decoration of the chapels where they prayed, and for the 
comfort of the refectories where they ate and drank, it was 
necessary that there should be good carpenters, good smiths, 
good painters, among them. For their greater safety in 
sickness and accident, living alone by themselves in solitary 
places, it was necessary that they should study the virtues of 
plants and herbs, and should know how to dress cuts, burns, 
scalds, and bruises, and how to set broken limbs. Accord- 
ingly, they taught themselves, and one another, a great 
variety of useful arts ; and became skilful in agriculture, 
medicine, surgery, and handicraft. And when they wanted 
the aid of any little piece of machinery, which would be sim- 
ple enough now, but was marvellous then, to impose a trick 
upon the poor peasants, they knew very well how to make 
it ; and did make it many a time and often, I have no doubt. 

Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, was one of the 
most sagacious of these monks. He was an ingenious smith, 
and worked at a forge -in a little cell. This cell was made 
too short to admit of his lying at full length when he went 
to sleep — as if that did any good to anybody ! — and he 
used to tell the most extraordinary lies about demons and 
spirits, who, he said, came there to persecute him. For 
instance, he related that, one day when he was at work, the 



28 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

devil looked in at the little window, and tried to tempt him 
to lead a life of idle pleasure ; whereupon, having his pincers 
in the fire, red hot, he seized the devil by the nose, and put 
him to such pain, that his bellowings were heard for miles 
and miles. Some people are inclined to think this nonsense 
a part of Dunstan's madness (for his head never quite recov- 
ered the fever) , but I think not. I observe that it induced 
the ignorant people to consider him a holy man, and that 
it made him very powerful. Which was exactly what he 
always wanted. 

On the day of the coronation of the handsome boy-king 
Edwy, it was remarked by Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury 
(who was a Dane by birth) , that the King quietly left the 
coronation feast, while all the company were there. Odo, 
much displeased, sent his friend Dunstan to seek him. Dun- 
stan finding him in the company of his beautiful young wife 
Elgiva, and her mother Ethelgiva, a good and virtuous 
lady, not only grossly abused them, but dragged the young 
King back into the feasting-hall by force. Some, again, 
think Dunstan did this because the }-oung King's fair wife 
was his own cousin, and the monks objected to people marry- 
ing their own cousins ; but I believe he did it because he 
was an imperious, audacious, ill-conditioned priest, who hav- 
ing loved a young lady himself before he became a sour 
monk, hated all love now, and everything belonging to it. 

The young King was quite old enough to feel this insult. 
Dunstan had been Treasurer in the last reign, and he soon 
charged Dunstan with having taken some of the last King's 
money. The Glastonbury Abbot fled to Belgium (very nar- 
rowly escaping some pursuers who were sent to put out his 
ej-es, as you will wish they had, when you read what follows) , 
and his abbey was given to priests who were married ; whom 
he alwa} T s, both before and afterwards, opposed. But he 
quickly conspired with his friend, Odo the Dane, to set up 
the King's young brother, Edgar, as his rival for the throne ; 
and, not content with this revenge, he caused the beautiful 



ATHELSTAN AND THE SIX BOY-KINGS. 29 

queen Elgiva, though a lovely girl of only seventeen or 
eighteen, to be stolen from one of the Royal Palaces, branded 
in the cheek with a red-hot iron, and sold into slavery in 
Ireland. But the Irish people pitied and befriended her; 
and they said^—l^Let us restore the girl-queen to the boy- 
king, and make the young lovers happy ! " and they cured 
her of her cruel wound, and sent her home as beautiful as 
before. But the villain Dunstan, and that other villain, Odo, 
caused her to be waylaid at Gloucester as she was joyfully 
hurrying to join her husband, and to be hacked and hewn 
with swords, and to be barbarously maimed and lamed, and 
left to die. When Edwy the Fair (his people called him so, 
because he was so young and handsome) heard of her dreadful 
fate, he died of a broken heart ; and so the pitiful story of 
the poor young wife and husband ends ! Ah ! Better to be 
two cottagers in these better times, than king and queen of 
England in those bad days, though never so fair ! 

Then came the boy -king Edgar, called the Peaceful, fifteen 
years old. Dunstan, being still the real king, drove all mar- 
ried priests out of the monasteries and abbe} T s, and replaced 
them by solitary monks like himself, of the rigid order called 
the Benedictines. He made himself Archbishop of Canter- 
burj', for his greater gloiy ; and exercised such power over 
the neighboring British princes, and so collected them about 
the King, that once, when the King held his court at Chester, 
and went on the river Dee to visit the monastery of St. John, 
the eight oars of his boat were pulled (as the people used to 
delight in relating in stories and songs) by eight crowned 
kings, and steered by the King of England. As Edgar was 
Very obedient to Dunstan and the monks, the} T took great 
pains to represent him as the best of kings. But he was 
really profligate, debauched, and vicious. He once forcibly 
carried off a }T>ung lad} T from the convent at Wilton ; and 
Dunstan, pretending to be very much shocked, condemned 
him not to wear his crown upon his head for seven } T ears — 
no great punishment, I dare say, as it can hardly have been 



30 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

a more comfortable ornament to wear, than a stewpan with- 
out a handle. His marriage with his second wife, Elfrida, 
is one of the worst events of his reign. Hearing of the beauty 
of this lady, he despatched his favorite courtier, Athelwold, 
to her father's castle in Devonshire, to see if she were really 
as charming as fame reported. Now, she was so exceedingly 
beautiful that Athelwold fell in love with her himself, and 
married her ; but he told the King that she was only rich — 
not handsome. The King, suspecting the truth when they 
came home, resolved to pay the newly married couple a visit ; 
and, suddenly, told Athelwold to prepare for his immediate 
coming. Athelwold, terrified, confessed to his young wife 
what he had said and done, and implored her to disguise her 
beauty by some ugly dress or silly manner, that he might 
be safe from the King's anger. She promised that she 
would ; but she was a proud woman, who would far rather 
have been a queen than the wife of a courtier. She dressed 
herself in her best dress, and adorned herself with her richest 
jewels ; and when the King came, presently, he discovered 
the cheat. So, he caused his false friend, Athelwold, to be 
murdered in a wood, and married his widow — this bad 
Elfrida. Six or seven years afterwards, he died ; and was 
buried, as if he had been all that the monks said he was, in 
the abbey of Glastonbury, which he — or Dunstan for him — 
had much enriched. 

England, in one part of this reign, was so troubled by 
wolves, which, driven out of the open country, hid themselves 
in the mountains of Wales when they were not attacking 
travellers and animals, that the tribute payable by the Welsh 
people was forgiven them, on condition of their producing, 
every year, three hundred wolves' heads. And the Welsh- 
men were so sharp upon the wolves, to save their money, that 
in four years there was not a wolf left. 

Then came the boy-king, Edward, called the Martyr, from 
the manner of his death. Elfrida had a son, named Ethel- 
red, for whom she claimed the throne ; but Dunstan did not 



ATHELSTAN AND THE SIX BOY-KINGS. 31 

choose to favor him, and he made Edward king. The boy 
was hunting, one day, down in Dorsetshire, w r hen he rode 
near to Corfe Castle, where Elfrida and Ethelred lived. 
Wishing to see them kindly, he rode awa}^ from his attendants 
and gallopeoV4o<the castle gate, where he arrived at twilight, 
and blew his hunting-horn. " You are welcome, dear King," 
said Elfrida, coming out, with her brightest smiles. "Pray 
3 T ou dismount and enter." " Not so, dear madam," said the 
King. "My compairy will miss me, and fear that I have 
met with some harm. Please yon to give me a cup of wine, 
that I may drink here, in the saddle, to you and to my little 
brother, and so ride away with the good speed I have made 
in 'riding here." Elfrida, going in to bring the wine, whis- 
pered an armed servant, one of her attendants, who stole out 
of the darkening gateway, and crept round behind the King's 
horse. As the King raised the cup to his lips, saying, 
" Health ! " to the wicked woman who was smiling on him, 
and to his innocent brother whose hand she held in hers, and 
who was only ten 3-ears old, this armed man made a spring 
and stabbed him in the back. He dropped the cup and 
spurred his horse away ; but, soon fainting with loss of blood, 
drooped from the saddle, and, in his fall, entangled one of 
his feet in the stirrup. The frightened horse clashed on ; 
trailing his rider's curls upon the ground ; dragging his smooth 
young face through ruts, and stones, and briers, and fallen 
leaves, and mud ; until the hunters, tracking the animal's 
course by the King's blood, caught his bridle, and released 
the disfigured body. 

Then came the sixth and last of the bo} x -kings, Ethelred, 
whom Elfrida, when he cried out at the sight of his murdered 
brother riding away from the castle gate, unmercifully beat 
with a torch which she snatched from one of the attendants. 
The people so disliked this bo} T , on account of his cruel mother 
and the murder she had done to promote him, that Dunstan 
would not have had him for king, but would have made 
Edgitha, the daughter of the dead King Edgar, and of the 



32 A CHILD'S HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. 

lady whom he stole out of the convent at Wilton, Queen of 
England, if she would have consented. But she knew the 
stories of the youthful kings too well, and would not be per- 
suaded from the convent where she lived in peace ; so, Dun- 
stan put Ethelred on the throne, having no one else to put 
there, and gave him the nickname of The Unready — know- 
ing that he wanted resolution and firmness. 

At first, Elfrida possessed great influence over the young 
King, but, as he grew older and came of age, her influence 
declined. The infamous woman, not having it in her power 
to do any more evil, then retired from court, and, according 
to the fashion of the time, built churches and monasteries, to 
expiate her guilt. As if a church, with a steeple reaching to 
the very stars, would have been any sign of true repentance 
for the blood of the poor bo}', whose murdered form was 
trailed at his horse's heels ! As if she could have buried her 
wickedness beneath the senseless stones of the whole world, 
piled up one upon another, for the monks to live in ! 

About the ninth or tenth year of this reign, Dunstan died. 
He was growing old then, but was as stern and artful as 
ever. Two circumstances that happened in connection with 
him, in this reign of Ethelred, made a great noise. Once, 
he was present at a meeting of the Church, when the question 
was discussed whether priests should have permission to 
marry ; and, as he sat with his head hung down, apparently 
thinking about it, a voice seemed to come out of a crucifix in 
the room, and warn the meeting to be of his opinion. This 
was some juggling of Duns tan's, and was probably his own 
voice disguised. But he pla} T ed off a worse juggle than that 
soon afterwards ; for, another meeting being held on the same 
subject, and he and his supporters being seated on one side 
of a great room, and their opponents on the other, he rose 
and said, " To Christ himself, as Judge, do I commit this 
cause ! " Immediately on these words being spoken, the floor 
where the opposite party sat gave way, and some were killed 
and many wounded. You may be pretty sure that it had 



ATHELSTAN AND THE SIX BOY-KINGS. 33 

been weakened under Dunstan's direction, and that it fell at 
Dunstan's signal. His part of the floor did not go down. 
No, no. He was too good a workman for that. 

When he died, the monks settled that he was a Saint, and 
called him SainkJ)unstan ever afterwards. They might just 
as well have settled that he was a coach- horse, and could just 
as easily have called him one. 

Ethelred the Unready was glad enough, I dare say, to be 
rid of this holy saint ; but, left to himself, he was a poor 
weak king, and his reign was a reign of defeat and shame. 
The restless Danes, led by Sweyn, a son of the King of Den- 
mark who had quarrelled with his father and had been ban- 
ished from home, again came into England, and, year after 
year, attacked and despoiled large towns. To coax these 
sea-kings away, the weak Ethelred paid them money ; but, 
the more money he paid, the more money the Danes wanted. 
At first, he gave them ten thousand pounds; on their next 
invasion, sixteen thousand pounds ; on their next invasion, 
four and twenty thousand pounds : to pay which large sums, 
the unfortunate English people were heavily taxed. But, as 
the Danes still came back and wanted more, he thought it 
would be a good plan to many into some powerful foreign 
famil}' that would help him with soldiers. So, in the } T ear 
one thousand and two, he courted and married Emma, the 
sister of Richard Duke of Normandy ; a lady who was called 
the Flower of Normandy. 

And now a terrible deed was done in England, the like of 
which was never done on English ground before or since. 
On the thirteenth of November, in pursuance of secret in- 
structions sent b}^ the King over the whole countr} T , the inhab- 
itants of every town and (Aty armed, and murdered all the 
Danes who were their neighbors. Young and old, babies 
and soldiers, men and women, every Dane was killed. No 
doubt there were among them man}' ferocious men who had 
done the English great wrong, and whose pride and insolence, 
in swaggering in the houses of the English and insulting their 

3 



34 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

wives and daughters, had become unbearable ; but no doubt 
there were also among them man}^ peaceful Christian Danes 
who had married English women and become like English 
men. They were all slain, even to Gunhilda, the sister of 
the King of Denmark, married to an English lord ; who was 
first obliged to see the murder of her husband and her child, 
and then was killed herself. 

When the King of the sea-kings heard of this deed of 
blood, he swore that he would have a great revenge. He 
raised an army, and a mightier fleet of ships than ever yet 
had sailed to England ; and in all his army there was not a 
slave or an old man, but every soldier was a free man, and 
the son of a free man, and in the prime of life, and sworn to 
be revenged upon the English nation, for the massacre of that 
dread thirteenth of November, when his countrymen and 
countrywomen, and the little children whom they loved, were 
killed with fire and sword. And so, the sea-kings came to 
England in many great ships, each bearing the flag of its own 
commander. Golden eagles, ravens, dragons, dolphins, beasts 
of prey, threatened England from the prows of those ships, as 
they came onward through the water ; and were reflected in 
the shining shields that hung upon their sides. The ship that 
bore the standard of the King of the sea-kings was carved 
and painted like a mighty serpent ; and the King in his anger 
prayed that the Gods in whom he trusted might all desert 
him, if his serpent did not strike its fangs into England's 
heart. 

And indeed it did. For, the great army landing from the 
great fleet, near Exeter, went forward, laying England waste, 
and striking their lances in the earth as the}'' advanced, or 
throwing them into rivers, in token of their making all the 
island theirs. In remembrance of the black November night 
when the Danes were murdered, wheresoever the invaders 
came, they made the Saxons prepare and spread for them 
great feasts ; and when they had eaten those feasts, and had 
drunk a curse to England with wild rejoicings, they drew 



ATHELSTAN AND THE SIX BOY-KINGS. 35 

their swords, and killed their Saxon entertainers, and marched 
on. For six long years they carried on this war : burning 
the crops, farmhouses, barns, mills, granaries ; killing the 
laborers in the fields ; preventing the seed from being sown 
in the grouncL^causing famine and starvation ; leaving only 
heaps of ruin and smoking ashes, where they had found rich 
towns. To crown this misery, English officers and men de- 
serted, and even the favorites of Ethelred the Unready, be- 
coming traitors, seized many of the English ships, turned 
pirates against their own country, and aided by a storm 
occasioned the loss of nearly the whole English navy. 

There was but one man of note, at this miserable pass, 
who was true to his country and the feeble King. He was a 
priest, and a brave one. For twent}' clays, the Archbishop 
of Canterbury defended that city against its Danish besiegers ; 
and when a traitor in the town threw the gates open and 
admitted them, he said, in chains, "I will not buy my life 
with money that must be extorted from the suffering people. 
Do with me what you please ! " Again and again, he steadily 
refused to purchase his release with gold wrung from the 
poor. 

At last, the Danes being tired of this, and being assem- 
bled at a drunken merry-making, had him brought into the 
feasting-hall. 

" Now, bishop," thej^ said, " we want gold ! " 

He looked round on the crowd of angry faces : from the 
shaggy beards close to him, to the shaggy beards against the 
walls, where men were mounted on tables and forms to see 
him over the heads of others : and he knew that his time 
was come. 

" I have no gold," said he. 

" Get it, bishop ! " the} T all thundered. 

" That, I have often told you, I will not," said he. 

The}' gathered closer round him, threatening, but he stood 
unmoved. Then, one man struck him ; then, another ; then 
a cursing soldier picked up from a heap in a corner of the hall, 



36 A CHILD'S HISTOKY OF ENGLAND. 

where fragments had been rudely thrown at- dinner, a great 
ox-bone, and cast it at his face, from which the blood came 
spurting forth ; then, others ran to the same heap, and knocked 
him down with other bones, and bruised and battered him ; un- 
til one soldier whom he had baptized (willing, as I hope for 
the sake of that soldier's soul, to shorten the sufferings of the 
good man) struck him dead with his battle-axe. 

If Ethelred had had the heart to emulate the courage of 
this noble archbishop, he might have done something yet. 
But he paid the Danes forty-eight thousand pounds, instead, 
and gained so little by the cowardly act, that Sweyn soon 
afterwards came over to subdue all England. So broken was 
the attachment of the English people, by this time, to their 
incapable King and their forlorn country which could not 
protect them, that they welcomed Sweyn on all sides, as a 
deliverer. London faithfully stood out, as long as the King 
was within its walls ; but, when he sneaked away, it also 
welcomed the Dane. Then, all was over ; and the King took 
refuge abroad with the Duke of Normandy, who had already 
given shelter to the King's wife, once the Flower of that 
country, and to her children. 

Still, the English people, in spite of their sad sufferings, 
could not quite forget the great King Alfred and the Saxon 
race. When Sweyn died suddenly, in little more than a 
month after he had been proclaimed King of England, they 
generously sent to Ethelred, to say that they would have him 
for their King again, "if he would only govern them better 
than he had governed them before." The Unready, instead 
of coming himself, sent Edward, one of his sons, to make 
promises for him. At last, he followed, and the English 
declared him King. The Danes declared Canute, the son of 
Sweyn, King. Thus, direful war began again, and lasted for 
three j^ears, when the Unready died. And I know of noth- 
ing better that he did, in all his reign of eight and thirty 
years. 

Was Canute to be King now? Not over the Saxons, they 



ATHELSTAN AND THE SIX BOY-KINGS. 37 

said ; they must have Edmund, one of the sons of the Un- 
ready, who was surnamed Ironside, because of his strength 
and stature. Edmund and Canute thereupon fell to, and 
fought five battles — O unhappy England, what a fighting 
ground it was-4<^- and then Ironside, who was a big man, 
proposed to Canute, who was a little man, that the}?- two 
should fight it out in single combat. If Canute had been the 
big man, he would probably have said yes, but, being the 
little man, he decidedly said no. However, he declared that 
he was willing to divide the kingdom — to take all that lay 
north of Watling Street, as the old Roman military road from 
Dover to Chester was called, and to give Ironside all that lay 
soujfch of it. Most men being weary of so much bloodshed, 
this was done. But Canute soon became sole King of Eng- 
land ; for Ironside died suddenly within two months. Some 
think that he was killed, and killed by Canute's orders. No 
one knows. 



38 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER V. 

ENGLAND UNDER CANUTE THE DANE. 

Canute reigned eighteen j^ears. He was a merciless King 
at first. After he had clasped the hands of the Saxon 
Chiefs, in token of the sincerity with which he swore to be 
just and good to them in return for their acknowledging 
him, he denounced and slew maiyy of them, as well as many 
relations of the late King. " He who brings me the head of 
one of my enemies," he used to say, " shall be dearer to me 
than a brother." And he was so severe in hunting down his 
enemies, that he must have got together a pretty large family 
of these dear brothers. He was strongly inclined to kill Ed- 
mund and Edward, two children, sons of poor Ironside ; but, 
being afraid to do so in England, he sent them over to the 
King of Sweden, with a request that the King would be - so 
good as "dispose of them." If the King of Sweden had 
been like manjr, man}?- other men of that day, he would have 
had their innocent throats cut ; but he was a kind man, and 
brought them up tenderly. 

Normandy ran much in Canute's mind. In Normandy 
were the two children of the late King — Edward and Al- 
fred by name ; and their uncle the Duke might one da}^ 
claim the crown for them. But the Duke showed so lit- 
tle inclination to do so now, that he proposed to Canute 
to many his sister, the widow of "The Unready ; who be- 
ing but a show}? - flower, and caring for nothing so much as 
becoming a queen again, left her children and was wedded 
to him. 

Successful and triumphant, assisted by the valor of the 



CANUTE THE DANE. 39 

English in his foreign wars, and with little strife to trouble him 
at home, Canute had a prosperous reign, and made many 
improvements. He was a poet and a musician. He grew 
sorry as he grew older, for the blood he had shed at first ; 
and went to Rome in a Pilgrim's dress, b} T way of washing 
it out. He gave a great deal of mone}?- to foreigners on his 
journey ; but he took it from the English before he started. 
On the whole, however, he certainly became a far better man 
when he had no opposition to contend with, and was as great 
a King as England had known for some time. 

The old writers of history relate how that Canute was one 
da} T disgusted with his courtiers for their flattery, and how 
he caused his chair to be set on the sea-shore, and feigned to 
command the tide as it came up not to wet the edge of his 
robe, for the land was his ; how the tide came up, of course, 
without regarding him ; and how he then turned to his flatterers, 
and rebuked them, saying, what was the might of any earthly 
king, to the might of the Creator, who could saj r unto the 
sea, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther!" We may 
learn from this, I think, that a little sense will go a long way 
in a king ; and that courtiers are not easily cured of flatter}', 
nor kings of a liking for it. If the courtiers of Canute had 
not known, long before, that the King was fond of flatter}', 
the}^ would have known better than to offer it in such large 
doses. And if they had not known that he was vain of this 
speech (anj'thing but a wonderful speech, it seems to me, if 
a good child had made it) , they would not have been at such 
great pains to repeat it. I fancy I see them all on the sea- 
shore together ; the King's chair sinking in the sand ; the 
King in a mighty good humor with his own wisdom ; and the 
courtiers pretending to be quite stunned b} T it ! 

It is not the sea alone that is bidden to go " thus far, and 
no farther." The great command goes forth to all the kings 
upon the earth, and went to Canute in the year one thousand 
and thirty-five, and stretched him dead upon his bed. Beside 
it, stood his Norman wife. Perhaps, as the King looked 



40 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

his last upon her, he, who had so often thought distrust- 
fully of Normandy, long ago, thought once more of the 
two exiled Princes in their uncle's court ; and of the little 
favor they could feel for either Danes or Saxons, and of 
a rising cloud in Normandy that slowly moved towards 
England. 



HAROLD, HARDICANUTE, AND EDWARD. 41 



CHAPTER VI. 

ENGLAND UNDER HAROLD HAREFOOT, HARDICANUTE, AND 
EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 

Canute left three sons, by name Sweyn, Harold, and 
Hardicanute ; but his Queen, Emma, once the Flower of 
Normandy, was the mother of only Hardicanute. Canute 
had wished his dominions to be divided between the three, 
and had wished Harold to have England; but the Saxon 
people in the South of England, headed by a nobleman with 
great possessions, called the powerful Earl Godwin (who is 
said to have been originally a poor cow-boy) , opposed this, 
and desired to have, instead, either Hardicanute, or one of the 
two exiled Princes who were over in Normandy. It seemed 
so certain that there would be more bloodshed to settle this 
dispute, that man} 7 people left their homes, and took refuge 
in the woods and swamps. Happily, however, it was agreed 
to refer the whole question to a great meeting at Oxford, 
which decided that Harold should have all the country north 
of the Thames, with London for his capital city, and that 
Hardicanute should have all the south. The quarrel was so 
arranged ; and, as Hardicanute was in Denmark troubling 
himself very little about anything but eating and getting 
drunk, his mother and Earl Godwin governed the south 
for him. 

They had hardly begun to do so, and the trembling people 
who had hidden themselves were scarcely at home again, 
when Edward, the elder of the two exiled Princes, came over 
from Normandy with a few followers, to claim the English 
Crown. His mother Emma, however, who only cared for 



42 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

her last son Hardicanute, instead of assisting him, as he ex- 
pected, opposed him so strongly with all her influence that he 
was very soon glad to get safely back. His brother Alfred 
was not so fortunate. Believing in an affectionate letter, 
written some time afterwards to him and his brother, in his 
mother's name (but whether really with or without his 
mother's knowledge is now uncertain) , he allowed himself to 
be tempted over to England, with a good force of soldiers, 
and landing on the Kentish coast, and being met and wel- 
comed by Earl Godwin, proceeded into Surrey, as far as the 
town of Guildford. Here, he and his men halted in the 
evening to rest, having still the Earl in their company ; who 
had ordered lodgings and good cheer for them. But, in the 
dead of the night, when they were off their guard, being 
divided into small parties sleeping soundly after a long march 
and a plentiful supper in different houses, they were set upon 
by the King's troops, and taken prisoners. Next morning 
they were drawn out in a line, to the number of six hundred 
men, and were barbarously tortured and killed, with the 
exception of every tenth man, who was sold into slavery. 
As to the wretched Prince Alfred, he was stripped naked, 
tied to a horse and sent away into the Isle of Ely, where his 
eyes were torn out of his head, and where in a few days he 
miserably died. I am not sure that the Earl had wilfully 
entrapped him, but I suspect it strongly. 

Harold was now King all over England, though it is doubt- 
ful whether the Archbishop of Canterbury (the greater part 
of the priests were Saxons, and not friendly to the Danes) 
ever consented to crown him. Crowned or uncrowned, with 
the Archbishop's leave or without it, he was King for four 
years : after which short reign he died, and was buried ; hav- 
ing never done much in life but go a hunting. He was such 
a fast runner at this, his favorite sport, that the people called 
him Harold Harefoot. 

Hardicanute was then at Bruges, in Flanders, plotting with 
his mother (who had gone over there after the cruel murder 



HAROLD, HARDICANUTE, AND EDWARD. 43 

of Prince Alfred), for the invasion of England. The Danes 
and Saxons, finding themselves without a King, and dreading 
new disputes, made common cause, and joined in inviting 
him to occup3 T the Throne. He consented, and soon troubled 
them enough> for he brought over numbers of Danes, and 
taxed the people so insupportably to enrich those greedy 
favorites that there were many insurrections, especially one 
at Worcester, where the citizens rose and killed his tax- 
collectors ; in revenge for which he burned their city. He 
was a brutal King, whose first public act was to order the 
dead body of poor Harold Hare foot to be dug up, beheaded, 
and thrown into the river. His end was worthy of such a 
beginning. He fell down drunk, with a goblet of wine in his 
hand, at a wedding-feast at Lambeth, given in honor of the 
marriage of his standard-bearer, a Dane, named Towed the 
Proud, and he never spoke again. 

Edward, afterwards called by the monks The Confessor, 
succeeded ; and his first act was to oblige his mother Emma, 
who had favored him so little, to retire into the country ; 
where she died some ten years afterwards. He was the ex- 
iled prince whose brother Alfred had been so foully killed. 
He had been invited over from Normandy by Hardicanute, 
in the course of his short reign of two }'ears, and had been 
handsomely treated at court. His cause was now favored by 
the powerful Earl Godwin, and he was soon made King. 
This Earl had been suspected by the people, ever since Prince 
Alfred's cruel death ; he had even been tried in the last reign 
for the Prince's murder, but had been pronounced not guilt}" ; 
chiefly, as it was supposed, because of a present he had made 
to the swinish King, of a gilded ship with a figure-head of 
solid gold, and a crew of eighty splendidly-armed men. It 
was his interest to help the new King with his power, if the 
new King would help him against the popular distrust and 
hatred. So they made a bargain. Edward the Confessor 
got the Throne. The Earl got more power and more land, 
and his daughter Editha was made queen ; for it was a 



44 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

part of their compact that the King should take her for his 
wife. 

But, although she was a gentle lady, in all things worthy 
to be beloved — good, beautiful, sensible, and kind — the 
King from the first neglected her. Her father and her six 
proud brothers, resenting this cold treatment, harassed the 
King greatly by exerting all their power to make him un- 
popular. Having lived so long in Normandy, he preferred 
the Normans to the English. He made a Norman Arch- 
bishop, and Norman Bishops ; his great officers and favorites 
were all Normans ; he introduced the Norman fashions and 
the Norman language ; in imitation of the state custom of 
Normandjr, he attached a great seal to his state documents, 
instead of merely marking them, as the Saxon Kings had 
clone, with the sign of the cross — just as poor people who 
have never been taught to write, now make the same mark 
for their names. All this, the powerful Earl Godwin and his 
six proud sons represented to the people as disfavor shown 
towards the English ; and thus they daily increased their own 
power, and daily diminished the power of the King. 

They were greatly helped by an event that occurred when 
he had reigned eight years. Eustace, Earl of Boulogne, who 
had married the King's sister, came to England on a visit. 
After staying at the court some time, he set forth, with his 
numerous train of attendants, to return home. They were to 
embark at Dover. Entering that peaceful town in armor, 
the}' took possession of the best houses, and noisily demanded 
to be lodged and entertained without payment. One of the 
bold men of Dover, who would not endure to have these 
domineering strangers jingling their heavy swords and iron 
corselets up and down his house, eating his meat and drink- 
ing his strong liquor, stood in his doorway and refused ad- 
mission to the first, armed man who came there. The armed 
man drew, and wounded him. The man of Dover struck the 
armed man dead. Intelligence of what he had done, spread- 
ing through the streets to where the Count Eustace and his 



HAROLD, HARDICANUTE, AND EDWARD. 45 

men were standing by their horses, bridle in hand, they 
passionately mounted, galloped to the house, surrounded it, 
forced their way in (the doors and windows being closed 
when they came up) , and killed the man of Dover at his own 
fireside. "They then clattered through the streets, cutting 
down and riding over men, women, and children. This did 
not last long, you may believe. The men of Dover set upon 
them with great fury, killed nineteen of the foreigners, 
wounded mairy more, and, blockading the road to the port so 
that they should not embark, beat them out of the town by 
the way they had come. Hereupon Count Eustace rides as 
hard as man can ride to Gloucester, where Edward is, sur- 
roimded by Norman monks and Norman lords. ' ' Justice ! " 
cries the Count, ' ' upon the men of Dover, who have set upon 
and slain nry people ! " The King sends immediately for the 
powerful Earl Godwin, who happens to be near ; reminds him 
that Dover is under his government ; and orders him to re- 
pair to Dover and do military execution on the inhabitants. 
" It does not become you," says the proud Earl in reply, " to 
condemn without a hearing those whom you have sworn to 
protect. I will not do it." 

The King, therefore, summoned the Earl, on pain of ban- 
ishment and loss of his titles and property, to appear before 
the court to answer this disobedience. The Earl refused to 
appear. He, his eldest son Harold, and his second son 
Sweyn, hastily raised as many fighting men as their utmost 
power could collect, and demanded to have Count Eustace 
and his followers surrendered to the justice of the country. 
The King, in his turn, refused to give them up, and raised a 
strong force. After some treaty and dela}', the troops of the 
great Earl and his sons began to fall off. The Earl, with a 
part of his family and abundance of treasure, sailed to Flan- 
ders ; Harold escaped to Ireland ; and the power of the great 
family was for that time gone in England. But, the people 
did not forget them. 

Then, Edward the Confessor, with the true meanness of a 



46 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

mean spirit, visited his dislike of the once powerful father and 
sons upon the helpless daughter and sister, his unoffending 
wife, whom all who saw her (her husband and his monks ex- 
cepted) loved. He seized rapaciously upon her fortune and 
her jewels, and allowing her only one attendant, confined her 
in a gloomy convent, of which a sister of his — no doubt an 
unpleasant lacly after his own heart — was abbess or jailer. 

Having got Earl Godwin and his six sons well out of his 
way, the King favored the Normans more than ever. He 
invited over William, Duke of Normandy, the son of that 
Duke who had received him and his murdered brother long 
ago, and of a peasant girl, a tanner's daughter, with whom 
that Duke had fallen in love for her beauty, as he saw her 
washing clothes in a brook. William, who was a great war- 
rior, with a passion for fine horses, dogs, and arms, accepted 
the invitation ; and the Normans in England, finding them- 
selves more numerous than ever when he arrived with his 
retinue, and held in still greater honor at court than before, 
became more and more haughty towards the people, and were 
more and more disliked by them. 

The old Earl Godwin, though he was abroad, knew well 
how the people felt; for, with part of the treasure he had 
carried away with him, he kept spies and agents in his pay 
all over England. Accordingly, he thought the time was 
come for fitting out a great expedition against the Norman- 
loving King. With it, he sailed to the Isle of Wight, where 
he was joined by his son Harold, the most gallant and brave 
of all his family. And so the father and son came sailing up 
the Thames to Southwark ; great numbers of the people 
declaring for them, and shouting for the English Earl and 
the English Harold, against the Norman favorites ! 

The King was at first as blind and stubborn as kings usually 
have been whensoever they have been in the hands of monks. 
But the people rallied so thickly round the old Earl and his 
son, and the old Earl was so steady in demanding without 
bloodshed the restoration of himself and his family to their 



HAROLD, HARDICANUTE, AND EDWARD. 47 

rights, that at last the court took the alarm. The Norman 
Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Norman Bishop of Lon- 
don, surrounded by their retainers, fought their way out of 
London, and escaped from Essex to France in a fishing-boat. 
The otherfsTorman favorites dispersed in all directions. The 
old Earl and his sons (except Sweyn, who had committed 
crimes against the law) were restored to their possessions and 
dignities. Editha, the virtuous and lovely Queen of the in- 
sensible King, was triumphantly released from her prison, 
the convent, and once more sat in her chair of state, arrayed 
in the jewels of which, when she had no champion to support 
her rights, her cold-blooded husband had deprived her. 

I^he old Earl Godwin did not long enjoy his restored fortune. 
He fell down in a fit at the King's table, and died upon the 
third day afterwards. Harold succeeded to his power, and to 
a far higher place in the attachment of the people than his 
father had ever held. By his valor he subdued the King's 
enemies in many bloody fights. He was vigorous against 
rebels in Scotland — This was the time when Macbeth slew 
Duncan, upon which event our English Shakespeare, hundreds 
of years afterwards, wrote his great tragedy : and he killed 
the restless "Welsh King Griffith, and brought his head to 
England. 

What Harold was doing at sea, when he was driven on the 
French coast by a tempest, is not at all certain ; nor does it 
at all matter. That his ship was forced by a storm on that 
shore, and that he was taken prisoner, there is no doubt. In 
those barbarous days, all shipwrecked strangers were taken 
prisoners, and obliged to pay ransom. So, a certain Count 
Guy, who was the Lord of Ponthieu where Harold's disaster 
happened, seized him, instead of relieving him like a hospit- 
able and Christian lord as he ought to have done, and expected 
to make a very good thing of it. 

But Harold sent off immediately to Duke William of Nor- 
mandy, complaining of this treatment ; and the Duke no 
sooner heard of it than he ordered Harold to be escorted to 



48 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

the ancient town of Rouen, where he then was, and where he 
received him as an honored guest. Now, some writers tell 
us that Edward the Confessor, who was by this time old and 
had no children, had made a will, appointing Duke William 
of Normandy his successor, and had informed the Duke of 
his having done so. There is no doubt that he was anxious 
about his successor, because he had even invited over, from 
abroad, Edward the Outlaw, a son of Ironside, who had 
come to England with his wife and three children, but whom 
the King had strangely refused to see when he did come, and 
who had died in London suddenly (princes were terribly liable 
to sudden death in those days) , and had been buried in St. 
Paul's Cathedral. The King might possibly have made such 
a will; or, having always been fond of the Normans, he 
might have encouraged Norman William to aspire to the 
English crown, by something that he said to him when he 
was staying at the English court. But, certainly William 
did now aspire to it ; and knowing that Harold would be a 
powerful rival, he called together a great assembly of his 
nobles, offered Harold his daughter Adele in marriage, in- 
formed him that he meant on King Edward's death to claim 
the English crown as his own inheritance, and required Harold 
then and there to swear to aid him. Harold, being in the 
Duke's power, took this oath upon the Missal, or Prayer-book. 
It is a good example of the superstitions of the monks, that 
this Missal, instead of being placed upon a table, was placed 
upon a tub ; which, when Harold had sworn, was uncovered, 
and shown to be full of dead men's bones— bones, as the 
monks pretended, of saints. This was supposed to make 
Harold's oath a great deal more impressive and binding. As 
if the great name of the Creator of Heaven and earth could 
be made more solemn by a knuckle-bone, or a double-tooth, 
or a finger-nail, of Dunstan ! 

Within a week or two after Harold's return to England, the 
dreary old Confessor was found to be dying. After wandering 
in his mind like a very weak old man, he died. As he had 



HAROLD, HARDICANUTE, AND EDWARD. 49 

put himself entirely in the hands of the monks when he was 
alive, they praised him lustily when he was dead. The}^ had 
gone so far, already, as to persuade him that he could work 
miracles ; and had brought people afflicted with a bad disorder 
of the sRh, to him, to be touched and cured. This was 
called " touching for the King's Evil," which afterwards be- 
came a ro} r al custom. You know, however, Who really 
touched the sick, and healed them ; and you know His sacred 
name is not among the dusty line of human kings. 



50 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER VII. 

ENGLAND UNDER HAROLD THE SECOND, AND CONQUERED BY 
THE NORMANS. 

Harold was crowned King of England on the very day 
of the maudlin Confessor's funeral. He had good need 
to be quick about it. When the news reached Norman 
William, hunting in his park at Rouen, he dropped his bow, 
returned to his palace, called his nobles to council, and pres- 
ently sent ambassadors to Harold, calling on him to keep his 
oath and resign the Crown. Harold would do no such thing. 
The barons of France leagued together round Duke William 
for the invasion of England. Duke William promised freely 
to distribute English wealth and English lands among them. 
The Pope sent to Normandy a consecrated banner, and a ring 
containing a hair which he warranted to have grown on the 
head of Saint Peter. He blessed the enterprise ; and cursed 
Harold ; and requested that the Normans would pay " Peter's 
Pence " — or a tax to himself of a penny a year on every 
house — a little more regularly in future, if they could make 
it convenient. 

King Harold had a rebel brother in Flanders, who was a 
vassal of Harold Hardrada, King of Norway. This brother, 
and this Norwegian King, joining their forces against Eng- 
land, with Duke William's help, won a fight in which the 
English were commanded by two nobles ; and then besieged 
York. Harold, who was waiting for the Normans on the 
coast at Hastings, with his army, marched to Stamford Bridge 
upon the river Derwent to give them instant battle. 

He found them drawn up in a hollow circle, marked out by 



HAEOLD THE SECOND. 51 

their shining spears. Riding round this circle at a distance, 
to survey it, he saw a brave figure on horseback, in a blue 
mantle and a bright helmet, whose horse suddenly stumbled 
and threw him. 

" Who is that man who has fallen? " Harold asked of one 
of his captains. 

" The King of Norway," he replied. 

" He is a tall and stately king," said Harold, " but his end 
is near." 

He added, in a little while, " Go} T onder to nry brother, and 
tell him, if he withdraw his troops, he shall be Earl of North- 
umberland, and rich and powerful in England." 

The captain rode away and gave the message. 

" What will he give to my friend the King of Norway? " 
asked the brother. 

" Seven feet of earth for a grave," replied the captain. 

" No more?" returned the brother, with a smile. 

"The King of Norway being a tall man, perhaps a little 
more," replied the captain. 

' ' Ride back ! " said the brother, ' ' and tell King Harold to 
make ready for the fight ! " 

He did so, ve^ soon. And such a fight King Harold led 
against that force, that his brother, and the Norwegian King, 
and every chief of note in all their host, except the Norwe- 
gian King's son, Olave, to whom he gave honorable dismissal, 
were left dead upon the field. The victorious army marched 
to York. As King Harold sat there at the feast, in the midst 
of all his compairy, a stir was heard at the doors ; and mes- 
sengers all covered with mire from riding far and fast through 
broken ground came hurrying in, to report that the Normans 
had landed in England. 

The intelligence was true. They had been tossed about by 
contrary winds, and some of their ships had been wrecked. 
A part of their own shore, to which the}^ had been driven 
back, was strewn with Norman bodies. But the}' had once 
more made sail, led by the Duke's own gallej', a present from 



52 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

his wife, upon the prow whereof the figure of a golden boy 
stood pointing towards England. By day, the banner of the 
three Lions of Normand}^, the diverse colored sails, the gilded 
vanes, the many decorations of this gorgeous ship, had glit- 
tered in the sun and sunny water ; by night, a light had 
sparkled like a star at her mast-head. And now, encamped 
near Hastings, with their leader tying in the old Roman castle 
of Pevensey, the English retiring in all directions, the land 
for miles around scorched and smoking, fired and pillaged, 
was the whole Norman power, hopeful and strong on English 
ground. 

Harold broke up the feast and hurried to London. Within 
a week, his army was ready. He sent out spies to ascertain 
the Norman strength. William took them, caused them to 
be led through his whole camp, and then dismissed. "The 
Normans," said these spies to Harold, " are not bearded on 
the upper lip as we English are, but are shorn. They are 
priests." "My men," replied Harold, with a laugh, "will 
find those priests good soldiers ! " 

" The Saxons," reported Duke William's outposts of Nor- 
man soldiers, who were instructed to retire as King Harold's 
army advanced, "rush on us through their pillaged country 
with the fury of madmen." 

" Let them come, and come soon ! " said Duke William. 

Some proposals for a reconciliation were made, but were 
soon abandoned. In the middle of the month of October, in 
the year one thousand and sixty-six, the Normans and the 
English came front to front. All night the armies lay en- 
camped before each other, in a part of the country then called 
Senlac, now called (in remembrance of them) Battle. With 
the first dawn of day, they arose. There, in the faint light, 
were the English on a hill ; a wood behind them ; in their 
midst, the Royal banner, representing a fighting warrior, 
woven in gold thread, adorned with precious stones ; beneath 
the banner as it rustled in the wind, stood King Harold on 
foot, with two of his remaining brothers by his side ; around 



HAEOLD THE SECOND. 53 

tfiem, still and silent as the dead, clustered the whole English 
army — every soldier covered b} r his shield, and bearing in 
his hand his dreaded English battle-axe. 

On an opposite hill, in three lines, archers, foot- soldiers, 
horsemen, was the Norman force. Of a sudden, a great 
battle-cry, "God help us!" burst from the Norman lines. 
The English answered with their own battle-cry, " God's 
Rood ! Holy Eood ! " The Normans then came sweeping 
down the hill to attack the English. 

There was one tall Norman Knight who rode before the 
Norman army on a prancing horse, throwing up his heavy 
sword and catching it, and singing of the bravery of his 
cotfntn T men. An English Knight, who rode out from the 
English force to meet him, fell by this Knight's hand. An- 
other English Knight rode out, and he fell too. But then a 
third rode out, and killed the Norman. This was in the first 
beginning of the fight. It soon raged eveiywhere. 

The English keeping side by side in a great mass, cared 
no more for the showers of Norman arrows than if they had 
been showers of Norman rain. When the Norman horsemen 
rode against them, with their battle-axes they cut men and 
horses clown. The Normans gave way. The English pressed 
forward. A cry went forth among the Norman troops that 
Duke William was killed. Duke William took off his helmet, 
in order that his face might be distinctly seen, and rode 
along the line before his men. This gave them courage. 
As they turned again to face the English, some of their Nor- 
man horse divided the pursuing body of the English from the 
rest, and thus all that foremost portion of the English army 
fell, fighting bravely. The main body still remaining firm, 
heedless of the Norman arrows, and with their battle-axes 
cutting down the crowds of horsemen when they rode up, like 
forests of young trees, Duke William pretended to retreat. 
The eager English followed. The Norman army closed 
again, and fell upon them with great slaughter. 

" Still," said Duke William, " there are thousands of the 



54 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

English, firm as rocks around their King. Shoot upward, 
Norman archers, that your arrows may fall down upon their 
faces ! " 

The sun rose high, and sank, and the battle still raged. 
Through all the wild October day, the clash and din re- 
sounded in the air. In the red sunset, and in the white 
moonlight, heaps upon heaps of dead men lay strewn, a 
dreadful spectacle, all over the ground. King Harold, 
wounded with an arrow in the eye, was nearly blind. His 
brothers were already killed. Twenty Norman Knights, 
whose battered armor had flashed fiery and golden in the 
sunshine all clay long, and now looked silvery in the moon- 
light, dashed forward to seize the Royal banner from the 
English Knights and soldiers, still faithfully collected round 
their blinded King. The King received a mortal wound, and 
dropped. The English broke and fled. The Normans rallied, 
and the day was lost. 

O what a sight beneath the moon and stars, when lights 
were shining in the tent of the victorious Duke William, 
which was pitched near the spot where Harold fell — and he 
and his Knights were carousing, within — and soldiers with 
torches, going slowly to and fro, without, sought for the 
corpse of Harold among piles of dead — and the warrior, 
worked in golden thread and precious stones, lay low, all 
torn and soiled with blood — and the three Norman Lions 
kept watch over the field ! 




-^> 



EDITH POINTING OUT THE BODY OF HAROLD. 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 55 



CHAPTER VIII. 

ENGLAND UNDER WILLIAM THE FIRST, THE NORMAN 
CONQUEROR. 

Upon the ground where the brave Harold fell, William 
the Norman afterwards founded an abbey, which, under 
the 7 name of Battle Abbey, was a rich and splendid place 
through many a troubled year, though now it is a gray 
ruin overgrown with ivy. But the first work he had to do, 
was to conquer the English thoroughly ; and that, as you 
know b} T this time, was hard work for any man. 

He ravaged several counties ; he burned and plundered 
many towns ; he laid waste scores upon scores of miles of 
pleasant country ; he destroyed innumerable lives. At length 
Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, with other representa- 
tives of the clergy and the people, went to his camp, and 
submitted to him. Edgar, the insignificant son of Edmund 
Ironside, was proclaimed King by others, but nothing came 
of it. He fled to Scotland afterwards, where his sister, who 
was young and beautiful, married the Scottish King. Edgar 
himself was not important enough for ai^body to care much 
about him. 

On Christmas Day, William was crowned in Westminster 
Abbey, under the title of William the First ; but he is best 
known as William the Conqueror. It was a strange coro- 
nation. One of the bishops who performed the ceremony 
asked the Normans, in French, if they would have Duke 
William for their king? They answered Yes. Another of 
the bishops put the same question to the Saxons, in English. 
They too answered Yes, with a loud shout. The noise being 



56 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

heard by a guard of Norman horse-soldiers outside, was mis- 
taken for resistance on the part of the English. The guard 
instantly set fire to the neighboring houses, and a tumult 
ensued ; in the midst of which the King, being left alone in 
the Abbey, with a few priests (and they all being in a terrible 
fright together), was hurriedly crowned. When the crown 
was placed upon his head, he swore to govern the English 
as well as the best of their own monarchs. I dare say you 
think, as I do, that if we except the Great Alfred, he might 
pretty easily have done that. 

Numbers of the English nobles had been killed in the last 
disastrous battle. Their estates, and the estates of all the 
nobles who had fought against him there, King William 
seized upon, and gave to his own Norman knights and nobles. 
Many great English families of the present time acquired 
their English lands in this way, and are very proud of it. 

But what is got by force must be maintained by force. 
These nobles were obliged to build castles all over England, 
to defend their new property ; and, do what he would, the 
King could neither soothe nor quell the nation as he wished. 
He gradually introduced the Norman language and the Nor- 
man customs ; yet, for a long time the great body of the 
English remained sullen and revengeful. On his going over 
to Normandy, to visit his subjects there, the oppressions of 
his half-brother Odo, whom he left in charge of his English 
kingdom, drove the people mad. The men of Kent even 
invited over, to take possession of Dover, their old enemy 
Count Eustace of Boulogne, who had led the fray when the 
Dover man was slain at his own fireside. The men of Here- 
ford, aided by the Welsh, and commanded by a chief named 
Edric the Wild, drove the Normans out of their country. 
Some of those who had been dispossessed of their lands, 
banded together in the North of England ; some, in Scotland ; 
some, in the thick woods and marshes ; and whensoever they 
could fall upon the Normans, or upon the English who had 
submitted to the Normans, they fought, despoiled, and mur- 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 57 

dered, like the desperate outlaws that they were. Conspira- 
cies were set on foot for a general massacre of the Normans, 
like the old massacre of the Danes. In short, the English 
were in a murderous mood all through the kingdom. 

King William, fearing he might lose his conquest, came 
back, and tried to pacify the London people by soft words. 
He then set forth to repress the country people by^stern 
deeds. Among the towns which he besieged, and where he 
killed and maimed the inhabitants without any distinction, 
sparing none, } T oung or old, armed or unarmed, were Oxford, 
Warwick, Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Lincoln, York. 
In all these places, and in many others, fire and sword worked 
their utmost horrors, and made the land dreadful to behold. 
The streams and rivers were discolored with blood ; the sky 
was blackened with smoke ; the fields were wastes of ashes ; 
the waysides were heaped up with dead. Such are the fatal 
results of conquest and ambition ! Although William was a 
harsh and angry man, I do not suppose that he deliberately 
meant to work this shocking ruin, when he invaded England. 
But what he had got by the strong hand, he could only keep 
by the strong hand, and in so doing he made England a great 
grave. 

Two sons of Harold, by name Edmund and Godwin, came 
over from Ireland, with some ships, against the Normans, 
but were defeated. This was scarcely done, when the out- 
laws in the woods so harassed York, that the Governor sent 
to the King for help. The King despatched a general and a 
large force to occupy the town of Durham. The Bishop of 
that place met the general outside the town, and warned him 
not to enter, as he would be in danger there. The general 
cared nothing for the warning, and went in with all his men. 
That night, on every hill within sight of Durham, signal fires 
were seen to blaze. When the morning dawned, the English, 
who had assembled in great strength, forced the gates, rushed 
into the town, and slew the Normans every one. The English 
afterwards besought the Danes to come and help them. The 



58 A CHILD'S HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. 

Danes came, with two hundred and forty ships. The out- 
lawed nobles joined them ; they captured York, and drove 
the Normans out of that city. Then, William bribed the 
Danes to go away ; and took such vengeance on the English, 
that all the former fire and sword, smoke and ashes, death 
and ruin, were nothing compared with it. In melancholy 
songs, and doleful stories, it was still sung and told by cot- 
tage fires on winter evenings, a hundred years afterwards, ' 
how, in those dreadful da} r s of the Normans, there was not, 
from the River Humber to the River Tj-ne, one inhabited 
village left, nor one cultivated field — how there was nothing 
but a dismal ruin, where the human creatures and the beasts 
lay dead together. 

The outlaws had, at this time, what they called a Camp of 
Refuge, in the midst of the fens of Cambridgeshire. Pro- 
tected by those marshy grounds which were difficult of ap- 
proach, they lay among the reeds and rushes, and were hidden 
by the mists that rose up from the watery earth. Now, there 
also was, at that time, over the sea in Flanders, r an English- 
man named Hereward, whose father had died in his absence, 
and whose property had been given to a Norman. When he 
heard of this wrong that had been done him (from such of the 
exiled English as chanced to wander into that country) , he 
longed for revenge ; and joining the outlaws in their camp of 
refuge, became their commander. He was so good a soldier, 
that the Normans supposed him to be aided by enchantment. 
William, even after he had made a road three miles in length 
across the Cambridgeshire marshes, on purpose to attack this 
supposed enchanter, thought it necessary to engage an old 
lady, who pretended to be a sorceress, to come and do a little 
enchantment in the royal cause. For this purpose she was 
pushed on before the troops in a wooden tower ; but Here- 
ward very soon disposed of this unfortunate sorceress, by 
burning her, tower and all. The monks of the convent of Ely 
near at hand, however, who were fond of good living, and 
who found it very uncomfortable to have the country block- 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 59 

aded and their supplies of meat and drink cut off, showed the 
King a secret way of surprising the camp. So Here ward 
was soon defeated. Whether he afterwards died quietly, or 
Whether he was killed after killing sixteen of the men who 
attacked him (as some old rlrymes relate that he did), I 
cannot say. His defeat put an end to the Camp of Refuge ; 
and, very soon afterwards, the King, victorious both in Scot- 
land and in England, quelled the last rebellious English noble. 
He then surrounded himself with Norman lords, enriched by 
the property of English nobles ; had a great survey made of 
all the land in England, which was entered as the property of 
its new owners, on a roll called Doomsday Book ; obliged the 
people to put out their fires and candles at a certain hour 
every night, on the ringing of a bell which was called The 
Curfew ; introduced the Norman dresses and manners ; made 
the Nornlans masters ever}*where, and the English, servants ; 
turned out the English bishops, and put Normans in their 
places ; and showed himself to be the Conqueror indeed. 

But, even with his own Normans, he had a restless life. 
They were always hungering and thirsting for the riches of 
the English ; and the more he gave, the more they wanted. 
His priests were as greed}^ as his soldiers. We know of 
only one Norman who plainly told his master, the King, 
that he had come with him to England to do his duty as a 
faithful servant, and that property taken by force from other 
men had no charms for him. His name was Guilbert. 
We should not forget his name, for it is good to remember 
and to honor honest men. 

Besides all these troubles, William the Conqueror was trou- 
bled by quarrels among his sons. He had three living. Robert, 
called Curthose, because of his short legs ; William, called 
Rufus or the Reel, from the color of his hair ; and Henry, fond 
of learning, and called, in the Norman language Beauclerc, or 
Fine-Scholar. When Robert grew up, he asked of his father 
the government of Normandy, which he had nominally pos- 
sessed, as a child, under his mother, Matilda. The King re- 



60 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

fusing to grant it, Robert became jealous and discontented ; 
and happening one day, while in this temper, to be ridiculed 
by his brothers, who threw water on him from a balcony as he 
was walking before the door, he drew his sword, rushed up- 
stairs, and was only prevented by the King himself from put- 
ting them to death. That same night, he hotly departed with 
some followers from his father's court, and endeavored to 
take the Castle of Rouen by surprise. Failing in this, he shut 
himself up in another Castle in Normandy, which the King be- 
sieged, and where Robert one clay unhorsed and nearly killed 
him without knowing who he was. His submission when he 
discovered his father, and the intercession of the queen and 
others, reconciled them ; but not soundly ; for Robert soon 
strayed abroad, and went from court to court with his com- 
plaints. He was a gay, careless, thoughtless fellow, spending 
all he got on musicians and dancers ; but his mother loved 
him, and often, against the King's command, supplied him with 
money through a messenger named Samson. At length the 
incensed King swore he would tear out Samson's e}^es ; and 
Samson, thinking that his only hope of safet} T was in becom- 
ing a monk, became one, went on such errands no more, and 
kept his eyes in his head. 

All this time, from the turbulent day of his strange corona- 
tion, the Conqueror had been struggling, you see, at airy cost 
of cruelty and bloodshed, to maintain what he had seized. 
All his reign, he struggled still, with the same object ever 
before him. He was a stern bold man, and he succeeded in 
it. 

He loved money, and was particular in his eating, but he 
had only leisure to indulge one other passion, and that was 
his love of hunting. He carried it to such a height that he 
ordered whole villages and towns to be swept away to make 
forests for the deer. Not satisfied with sixty-eight Royal 
Forests, he laid waste an immense district, to form another 
in Hampshire, called the New Forest. The many thousands 
of miserable peasants who saw their little houses pulled 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 61 

down, and themselves and children turned into the open coun- 
try without a shelter, detested him for his merciless addition 
to their many sufferings ; and when, in the twenty-first year 
of his reign (which proved to be the last) , he went over to 
Rouen, England was as full of hatred against him as if every 
leaf on every tree in all his Ro} T al Forests had been a curse 
upon his head. In the New Forest, his son Richard (for he 
had four sons) had been gored to death by a Stag ; and the 
people said that this so cruelty-made Forest would yet be fatal 
to others of the Conqueror's race. 

He was engaged in a dispute with the King of France 
about some territory. While he stayed at Rouen, negotiating 
with that King, he kept his bed and took medicines : being 
advised by his plrysicians to do so, on account of having 
grown to an unwieldy size. Word being brought to him that 
the King of France made light of this, and joked about it, he 
swore in a great rage that he should rue his jests. He assem- 
bled his army, marched into the disputed territory, burnt — 
his old way! — the vines, the crops, and fruit, and set the 
town of Mantes on fire. But, in an evil hour ; for, as he rode 
over the hot ruins, his horse, setting his hoofs upon some burn- 
ing embers, started, threw him forward against the pommel 
of the saddle, and gave him a mortal hurt. For six weeks he 
lay dying in a monastery near Rouen, and then made his will, 
giving England to William, Normandy to Robert, and five 
thousand pounds to Henry. And now his violent deeds- 
lay heav} T on his mind. He ordered mone}- to be given to 
many English churches and monasteries, and — which was 
much better repentance — released his prisoners of state, 
some of whom had been confined in his dungeons twent}' 
years. 

It was a September morning, and the sun was rising, when 
the King was awakened from slumber by the sound of a 
church bell. " What bell is that ! " he faintly asked. They 
told him it was the bell of the chapel of Saint Mary. ' ' I 
commend my soul," said he, " to Mary I " and died. 



62 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Think of his name, The Conqueror, and then consider how 
he liiy in death ! The moment he was dead, his physicians, 
priests, and nobles, not knowing what contest for the throne 
might now take place, or what might happen in it, hastened 
away, each man for himself and his own property ; the mer- 
cenary servants of the court began to rob and plunder ; the 
body of the King, in the indecent strife, was rolled from the 
bed, and lay alone, for hours, upon the ground. O Conquer- 
or, of whom so many great names are proud now, of whom so 
many great names thought nothing then, it were better to have 
conquered one true heart, than England ! 

By-and-by, the priests came creeping in with prayers 
and candles ; and a good knight, named Herluin, under- 
took (which no one else would do) to convey the body to 
Caen, in Normandy, in order that it might be buried in St. 
Stephen's church there, which the Conqueror had founded. 
But fire, of which he had made such bad use in his life, 
seemed to follow him of itself in death. A great conflagration 
broke out in the town when the body was placed in the 
church ; and those present running out to extinguish the 
flames, it was once again left alone. 

It was not even buried in peace. It was about to be let 
down, in its Royal robes, into a tomb near the high altar, in 
presence of a great concourse of people, when a loud voice in 
the crowd cried out, ' ' This ground is mine ! Upon it, stood 
my father's house. This King despoiled me of both ground 
and house to build this church. In the great name of God, I 
here forbid his body to be covered with the earth that is my 
right ! " The priests and bishops present, knowing the speak- 
er's right, and knowing that the King had often denied 
him justice, paid him down sixty shillings for the grave. 
Even then, the corpse was not at rest. The tomb was too 
small, and they tried to force it in. It broke, a dreadful 
smell arose, the people hurried out into the air, and, for the 
third time, it was left alone. 

Where were the Conqueror's three sons, that they were not 




AZELIN FORBIDDING THE BURIAL OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 03 

at their father's burial? Robert was lounging among min- 
strels, dancers, and gamesters, in France or German}'. Hen- 
ry was carrying his five thousand pounds safely awa} r in a 
convenient chest he had got made. William the Red was 
hurrying to England, to lay hands upon the Royal treasure 
and the crown. 



64 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER IX. 

ENGLAND UNDER WILLIAM THE SECOND, CALLED RUFUS. 

William the Red, in breathless haste secured the three 
great forts of Dover, Pevensey, and Hastings, and made 
with hot speed for Winchester, where the Royal treasure 
was kept. The treasurer delivering him the keys, he found 
that it amounted to sixt^y thousand pounds in silver, besides 
gold and jewels. Possessed of this wealth, he soon per- 
suaded the Archbishop of Canterbury to crown him, and 
became William the Second, King of England. 

Rufus was no sooner on the throne, than he ordered into 
prison again the unhappy state captives whom his father had 
set free, and directed a goldsmith to ornament his father's 
tomb profusely with gold and silver. It would have been 
more dutiful in him to have attended the sick Conqueror when 
he was d}ing ; but England, itself, like this Red King, who 
once governed it, has sometimes made expensive tombs for 
dead men whom it treated shabbily when the} r were alive. 

The King's brother, Robert of Normandy, seeming quite 
content to be only Duke of that country; and the King's 
other brother, Fine-Scholar, being quiet enough with his five 
thousand pounds in a chest ; the King flattered himself, we 
may suppose, with the hope of an easy reign. But easy reigns 
were difficult to have in those da} T s. The turbulent Bishop 
Odo (who had blessed the Norman army at the Battle of 
Hastings, and who, I dare say, took all the credit of the vic- 
tory to himself) soon began, in concert with some powerful 
Norman nobles, to trouble the Red King. 

The truth seems to be that this bishop and his friends, who 



WILLIAM THE SECOND. 65 

had lands in England and lands in Normandy, wished to hold 
both under one Sovereign ; and greatly preferred a thoughtless 
goojd-natured person, such as Robert was, to Rufus ; who, 
though far from being an amiable man in any respect, was 
keen, and not to be imposed upon. The}' declared in Robert's 
favor, and retired to their castles (those castles were very 
troublesome to kings) in a sullen humor. The Red King, 
seeing the Normans thus falling from him, revenged himself 
upon them by appealing to the English ; to whom he made a 
variety of promises, which he never meant to perform — in 
particular, promises to soften the cruelty of the Forest Laws ; 
and who, in return, so aided him with their valor, that Odo 
was besieged in the Castle of Rochester, and forced to aban- 
don it, and to depart from England for ever ; whereupon the 
other rebellious Norman nobles were soon reduced and scat- 
tered. 

Then, the Red King went over to Normandy, where the 
people suffered greatly under the loose rule of Duke Robert. 
The King's object was to seize upon- the Duke's dominions. 
This, the Duke, of course, prepared to resist ; and miserable 
war between the two brothers seemed inevitable, when the 
powerful nobles on both sides, who had seen so much of war, 
interfered to prevent it. A treaty was made. Each of the 
two brothers agreed to give up something of his claims, and 
that the longer liver of the two should inherit all the domin- 
ions of the other. When they had come to this loving under- 
standing, the} 7 embraced and joined their forces against Fine- 
Scholar ; who had bought some territory of Robert with a 
part of his five thousand pounds, and was considered a dan- 
gerous individual in consequence. 

St. Michael's Mount, in Normandy (there is another St. 
Michael's Mount, in Cornwall, wonderfully like it), was then, 
as it is now, a strong place perched upon the top of a high 
rock, around which, when the tide is in, the sea flows, leaving 
no road to the mainland. In this place, Fine-Scholar shut 
himself up with his soldiers, and here he was closely besieged 

5 



bb A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

by his two brothers. At one time, when he was reduced to 
great distress for want of water, the generous Robert not only 
permitted his men to get water, but sent Fine-Scholar wine 
from his own table ; and, on being remonstrated with by the 
Red King, said, "What! shall we let our own brother die 
of thirst ? Where shall we get another, when he is gone ? " 
At another time, the Eed King riding alone on the shore of 
the bay, looking up at the Castle, was taken by two of Fine- 
Scholar's men, one of whom was about to kill him, when he 
cried out, " Hold, knave ! I am the King of England ! " The 
story says that the soldier raised him from the ground respect- 
fully and humbly, and that the King took him into his service. 
The story may or may not be true ; but at any rate it is true 
that Fine-Scholar could not hold out against his united broth- 
ers, and that he abandoned Mount St. Michael, and wandered 
about — as poor and forlorn as other scholars have been some- 
times known to be. 

The Scotch became unquiet in the Red King's time, and 
were twice defeated — the second time, with the loss of their 
King, Malcolm, and his son. The Welsh became unquiet too. 
Against them, Rufus was less successful; for they fought 
among their native mountains, and did great execution on 
the King's troops. Robert of Normandy became unquiet 
too ; and complaining that his brother the King did not faith- 
fully perform his part of their agreement, took up arms, and 
obtained assistance from the King of France, whom Rufus, 
in the end, bought off with vast sums of money . England 
became unquiet too. Lord Mowbray, the powerful Earl of 
Northumberland, headed a great conspiracy to depose the 
King, and to place upon the throne, Stephen, the Conqueror's 
near relative. The plot was discovered ; all the chief con- 
spirators were seized ; some were fined, some were put in 
prison, some were put to death. The Earl of Northumberland 
himself was shut up in a dungeon beneath Windsor Castle, 
where he died, an old man, thirty long years afterwards. 
The Priests in England were more unquiet than any other 



WILLIAM THE SECOND. 67 

class or power ; for the Red King treated them with such 
small cereniorry that he refused to appoint new bishops or 
archbishops when the old ones died, but kept all the wealth 
belonging to those offices in his own hands. In return for 
this, the Priests wrote his life when he was dead, and abused 
him well. I am inclined to think, myself, that there was 
little to choose between the Priests and the Red King ; that 
both sides were greedy and designing ; and that they were 
fairly matched. 

The Red King was false of heart, selfish, covetous, and 
mean. He had a worthy minister in his favorite, Ralph, 
nicknamed — for almost every famous person had a nickname 
in those rough da} r s — Flambard, or the Firebrand. Once, 
the King being ill, became penitent, and made Anselm, a 
foreign priest and a good man, Archbishop of Canterbury. 
But he no sooner got well again than he repented of his re- 
pentance, and persisted in wrongfully keeping to himself some 
of the wealth belonging to the archbishopric. This led to 
violent disputes, which were aggravated by there being in 
Rome at that time two rival Popes ; each of whom declared 
he was the only real original infaUible Pope, who couldn't 
make a mistake. At last, Anselm, knowing the Red King's 
character, and not feeling himself safe in England, asked 
leave to return abroad. The Red King gladly gave it ; for 
he knew that as soon as Anselm was gone, he could begin to 
store up all the Canterbury money again, for his own use. 

By such means, and b} r taxing and oppressing the English 
people in every possible way, the Red King became very rich. 
When he wanted money for any purpose, he raised it by some 
means or other, and cared nothing for the injustice he did, or 
the misery he caused. Having the opportunity of buying 
from Robert the whole duchy of Normandy for five years, he 
taxed the English people more than ever, and made the very 
convents sell their plate and valuables to supply him with the 
means to make the purchase. But he was as quick and eager 
in putting down revolt as he was in raising money ; for, a 



68 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

part of the Norman people objecting — very naturally, I think 
— to being sold in this way, he headed an army against them 
with all the speed and energy of his father. He was so im- 
patient, that he embarkecf for Normandy in a great gale of 
wind. And when the sailors told him it was dangerous to go 
to sea in such angiy weather, he replied, "Hoist sail and 
away ! Did you ever hear of a king who was drowned ? " 

You will wonder how it was that even the careless Robert 
came to sell his dominions. It happened thus. It had long 
been the custom for many English people to make journeys to 
Jerusalem, which were called pilgrimages, in order that they 
might pray beside the tomb of Our Saviour there. Jerusalem 
belonging to the Turks, and the Turks hating Christian^, 
these Christian travellers were often insulted and ill-used. 
The pilgrims bore it patiently for some time, but at length a 
remarkable man, of great earnestness and eloquence, called 
Peter the Hermit, began to preach in various places against 
the Turks, and to declare that it was the duty of good Chris- 
tians to drive away those unbelievers from the tomb of Our 
Saviour, and to take possession of it, and protect it. An 
excitement such as the world had never known before was 
created. Thousands and thousands of men of all ranks and 
conditions departed for Jerusalem to make war against the 
Turks. The war is called in history the first Crusade ; and 
every Crusader wore a cross marked on his right shoulder. 

All the Crusaders were not zealous Christians. Among 
them were vast numbers of the restless, idle, profligate, and 
adventurous spirits of the time. Some became Crusaders for 
the love of change ; some, in the hope of plunder ; some, 
because the} T had nothing to do at home ; some, because they 
did what the priests told them; some, because the} T liked to 
see foreign countries ; some, because they were fond of knock- 
ing men about, and would as soon knock a Turk about as a 
Christian. Robert of Normandy ma}' have been influenced 
by all these motives ; and by a kind desire, besides, to save 
the Christian Pilgrims from bad treatment in future. He 



WILLIAM THE SECOND. 69 

wanted to raise a number of armed men, and to go to the 
Crusade. He could not do so without rnone}-. He had no 
mone}' ; and he sold his dominions to his brother, the Red 
Ein^, for five years. With the large sum he thus obtained, 
he fitted out his Crusaders gallantly, and went away to Jeru- 
salem in martial state. The Red King, who made money out 
of everything, stayed at home, busily squeezing more money 
out of Normans and English. 

After three years of great hardship and suffering — from 
shipwreck at sea ; from travel in strange lands ; from hunger, 
thirst, and fever, upon the burning sands of the desert ; and 
from the fury of the Turks — the valiant Crusaders got pos- 
session of our Saviour's tomb. The Turks were still resisting 
and fighting bravety, but this success increased the general 
desire in Europe to join the Crusade. Another great French 
Duke was proposing to sell his dominions for a term to the 
rich Red King, when the Red King's reign came to a sudden 
and violent end. 

You have not forgotten the New Forest which the Con- 
queror made, and which the miserable people whose homes 
he had laid waste, so hated. The cruelty of the Forest Laws, 
and the torture and death they brought upon the peasantiy, 
increased this hatred. The poor persecuted country people 
believed that the New Forest was enchanted. They said that 
in thunder-storms, and on dark nights, demons appeared, 
moving beneath the branches of the gloomy trees. They 
said that a terrible spectre had foretold to Norman hunters 
that the Red King should be punished there. And now, in 
the pleasant season of May, when the Red King had reigned 
almost thirteen years ; and a second Prince of the Conqueror's 
blood — another Richard, the son of Duke Robert — was 
killed by an arrow in this dreaded forest ; the people said the 
second time was not the last, and that there was another 
death to come. 

It was a lonely forest, accursed in the people's hearts for 
the wicked deeds that had been done to make it ; and no man 



70 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

save the King and his Courtiers and Huntsmen, liked to stray 
there. But, in reality, it was like any other forest. In the 
spring, the green leaves broke out of the buds ; in the sum- 
mer, flourished heartily, and made deep shades ; in the win- 
ter, shrivelled and blew down, and lay in brown heaps on the 
moss. Some trees were stately, and grew high and strong : 
some had fallen of themselves ; some were felled by the 
forester's axe ; some were hollow, and the rabbits burrowed 
at their roots ; some few were struck by lightning, and 
stood white and bare. There were hill-sides covered with 
rich fern, on which the morning dew so beautifully sparkled ; 
there were brooks, where the deer went down to drink, or 
over which the whole herd bounded, flying from the arrows of 
the huntsmen ; there were sunny glades, and solemn places 
where but little light came through the rustling leaves. The 
songs of the birds in the New Forest were pleasanter to hear 
than the shouts of fighting men outside ; and even when the 
Reel King and his Court came hunting through its solitudes, 
cursing loud and riding hard, with a jingling of stirrups and 
bridles and knives and daggers, they did much less harm 
there than among the English or Normans, and the stags 
died (as they lived) far easier than the people. 

Upon a day in August, the Red King, now reconciled to 
his brother, Fine-Scholar, came with a great train to hunt in 
the New Forest. Fine-Scholar was of the party. They were 
a merry party, and had lain all night at Mai wood-Keep, a 
hunting-lodge in the forest, where they had made good cheer, 
both at supper and breakfast, and had drunk a deal of wine. 
The party dispersed in various directions, as the custom of 
hunters then was. The King took with him only Sir Wal- 
ter Tyrrel, who was a famous sportsman, and to whom he 
had given, before they mounted horse that morning, two fine 
arrows. 

The last time the King was ever seen alive, he was riding 
with Sir Walter Tyrrel, and their dogs were hunting together. 

It was almost night, when a poor charcoal-burner, passing 



WILLIAM THE SECOND. 71 

through the forest with his cart, came upon the solitary body 
of a dead man, shot with an arrow in the breast, and still 
bleeding. He got it into his cart. It was the bod} 7 of the 
King. Shaken and tumbled, with its red. beard all whitened 
with lime and clotted with blood, it was driven in the cart by 
the charcoal-burner next da} 7 to Winchester Cathedral, where 
it was received and. buried. 

Sir Walter Tyrrel, who escaped to Normandy, and claimed 
the protection of the. King of France, swore in France that 
the Red King was suddenly shot dead by an arrow from an 
unseen hand, while they were hunting together ; that he was 
fearful of being suspected as the King's murderer ; and that 
he instantly set spurs to his horse, and fled to the sea- shore. 
Others declared that the King and Sir Walter Tyrrel were 
hunting in company, a little before sunset, standing in bushes 
opposite one another, when a stag came between them. That 
the King drew his bow and took aim, but the string broke. 
That the King then cried, "Shoot, Walter, in the Devil's 
name ! " That Sir Walter shot. That the arrow glanced 
against a tree, was turned aside from the stag, and struck 
the King from his horse, dead. 

By whose hand the Red King really fell, and whether that 
hand despatched the arrow to his breast by accident or by 
design, is only known to God. Some think his brother may 
have caused him to be killed ; but the Red King had made so 
many enemies, both among priests and people, that suspicion 
may reasonably rest upon a less unnatural murderer. Men 
know no more than that he was found dead in the New For- 
est, which the suffering people had regarded as a doomed 
ground for his race. 



72 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER X. 

ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FIRST, CALLED FINE-SCHOLAR. 

Fine-Scholar, on hearing of the Red King's death, hur- 
ried to Winchester, with as much speed as Rufus himself 
had made, to seize the Royal treasure. But the keeper of 
the treasure, who had been one of the hunting-part}- in the 
Forest, made haste to Winchester, too, and, arriving there 
about the same time, refused to yield it up. Upon this, 
Fine-Scholar drew his sword, and threatened to kill the treas- 
urer ; who might have paid for his fidelity with his life,, but 
that he knew longer resistance to be useless when he found 
the Prince supported by a company of powerful barons, who 
declared they were determined to make him King. The 
treasurer, therefore, gave up the money and jewels of the 
Crown ; and on the third clay after the death of the Red King, 
being a Sunday, Fine-Scholar stood before the high altar in 
Westminster Abbey, and made a solemn declaration that he 
would resign the Church property which his brother had 
seized ; that he would do no wrong to the nobles ; and that 
he would restore to the people the laws of Edward the Con- 
fessor, with all the improvements of William the Conqueror. 
So began the reign of King- Henry, the First. 

The people were attached to their new King, both because 
he had known distresses, and because he was an Englishman 
by birth and not a Norman. To strengthen this last hold 
upon them, the King wished to marry an English lady ; and 
could think of no other wife than Maud the Good, the 
daughter of the King of Scotland. Although this good Prin- 
cess did not love the King, she was so affected by the repre- 



HENRY THE FIRST. 73 

sentations the nobles made to her of the great charity it 
would be in her to unite the Norman and Saxon races, and 
prevent hatred and bloodshed between them for the future, 
that she consented to become his wife. After some disputing 
among the priests, who said that as she had been in a convent 
in her youth, and had worn the veil of a nun, she could not 
lawfully be married — against which the Princess stated that 
her aunt, with whom she had lived in her youth, had indeed 
sometimes thrown a piece of black stuff over her, but for no 
other reason than because the nun's veil was the only dress 
the conquering Normans respected in girl or woman, and 
not because she had taken the vows of a nun, which she 
never had — she was declared free to marry, and was 
made King Hemy's Queen. A good Queen she was ; beau- 
tiful, kind-hearted, and worth} 7 of a better husband than the 
King. 

For he was a cunning and unscrupulous man, though firm 
and clever. He cared very little for his word, and took any 
means to gain his ends. All this is shown in his treatment 
of his brother Robert — Robert, who had suffered him to be 
refreshed with water, and who had sent him the wine from 
his own table, when he was shut up, with the crows frying 
below him, parched with thirst, in the castle on the top of 
St. Michael's Mount, where his Red brother would have let 
him die. 

Before the King began to deal with Robert, he removed 
and disgraced all the favorites of the late King ; who were 
for the most part base characters, much detested by the 
people. Flambard, or Firebrand, whom the late King had 
made Bishop of Durham, of all things in the world, Henry 
imprisoned in the Tower ; but Firebrand was a great joker 
and a jolly companion, and made himself so popular with his 
guards that the} 7 pretended to know nothing about a long 
rope that was sent into his prison at the bottom of a deep 
flagon of wine. The guards took the wine, and Firebrand 
took the rox^e ; with which, when they were fast asleep, he 



74 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

let himself down from a window in the night, and so got 
cleverly aboard ship and away to Normandy. 

Now Robert, when his brother Fine-Scholar came to the 
throne, was still absent in the Holy Land. Henry pretended 
that Robert had been made Sovereign of that country ; and 
he had been away so long that the ignorant people believed 
it. But, behold, when Henry had been some time King of 
England, Robert came home to Normandy ; having leisurely 
returned from Jerusalem through Italy, in which beautiful 
country he had enjoyed himself very much, and had married 
a lady as beautiful as itself ! In Normandy he found Fire- 
brand waiting to urge him to assert his claim to the English 
crown, and declare -war against King Henry. This, after 
great loss of time in feasting and dancing with his beautiful 
Italian wife among his Norman friends, he at last did. 

The English in general were on King Henry's side, though 
many of the Normans were on Robert's. But the English 
sailors deserted the King, and took a great part of the English 
fleet over to Normandy ; so that Robert came to invade this 
country in no foreign vessels, but in English ships. The vir- 
tuous Anselm, however, whom Henry had invited back from 
abroad, and made Archbishop of Canterbury, was steadfast 
in the King's cause ; and it was so well supported that the two 
armies, instead of fighting, made a peace. Poor Robert, who 
trusted anybody and everybody, readily trusted his brother, 
the King ; and agreed to go home and receive a pension from 
England, on condition that all his followers were fully par- 
doned. This the King very faithfully promised, but Robert 
was no sooner gone than he began to punish them. 

Among them was the Earl of Shrewsbury, who, on being 
summoned by the King to answer to five-and-forty accusa- 
tions, rode away to one of his strong castles, shut himself up 
therein, called around him his tenants and vassals, and fought 
for his liberty, but was defeated and banished. Robert, with 
all his faults, was so true to his word, that when he first heard 
of this nobleman having risen against his brother, he laid 



HENRY THE FIRST. 75 

waste the Earl of Shrewsbiuy's estates in Normanch T , to show 
the King that he would favor no breach of their treat}*. 
Finding, on better information, afterwards, that the Earl's 
oiijiy crime was having been his friend, he came over to Eng- 
land, in his old thoughtless warm-hearted wa} r , to intercede 
with the King, and remind him of the solemn promise to 
pardon all his followers. 

This confidence might have put the false King to the blush, 
but it did not. Pretending to be very friendly, he so sur- 
rounded his brother with spies and traps, that Robert, who 
was quite in his power, had nothing for it but to renounce his 
pension and escape w T hile he could. Getting home to Nor- 
mand} T , and understanding the King better now, he naturally 
allied himself with his old friend the Earl of Shrewsbury, who 
had still thirty castles in that countiy. This was exactly 
what Hemy wanted. He immediately declared that Robert 
had broken the treat} 7 , and next 3*ear invaded Normand} 7 . 

He pretended that he came to deliver the Normans, at their 
own request, from his brother's misrule. There is reason to 
fear that his misrule was bad enough : for his beautiful wife 
had died, leaving him with an infant son, and his court w T as 
again so careless, dissipated, and ill-regulated, that it was 
said he -sometimes la} T in bed of a da} T for want of clothes to 
put on — his attendants having stolen all his dresses. But 
he headed his army like a brave prince and a gallant soldier, 
though he had the misfortune to be taken prisoner by King 
Henry, with four hundred of his Knights. Among them was 
poor harmless Edgar Atheling, who loved Robert well. Ed- 
gar was not important enough to be severe with. The King 
afterwards gave him a small pension, which he lived upon 
and died upon, in peace, among the quiet woods and fields of 
England. 

And Robert — poor, kind, generous, wasteful, heedless 
Robert, with so many faults, and yet with virtues that might 
have made a better and a happier man — what was the end 
of him ? If the King had had the magnanimity to say with a 



76 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

kind air, "Brother, tell me, before these noblemen, that from 
this time you will be nry faithful follower and friend, and 
never raise }-our hand against me or nry forces more ! " he 
might have trusted Robert to the death. But the King was 
not a magnanimous man. He sentenced his brother to be 
confined for life in one of the Royal Castles. In the begin- 
ning of his imprisonment, he was allowed to ride out, guarded ; 
but he one da}- broke away from his guard and galloped off. 
He had the evil fortune to ride into a swamp, where his horse 
stuck fast and he was taken. When the King heard of it he 
ordered him to be blinded, which was done by putting a red- 
hot metal basin on his e} r es. 

And so, in darkness and in prison, man} 7 j^ears, he thought 
of all his past life, of the time he had wasted, of the treasure 
he had squandered, of the opportunities he had lost, of the 
youth he had thrown away, of the talents he had neglected. 
Sometimes, on fine autumn mornings, he would sit and think 
of the old hunting parties in the free Forest, where he had 
been the foremost and the gaj^est. Sometimes, in the still 
nights, he would wake, and mourn for the many nights that 
had stolen past him at the gaming-table ; sometimes, would 
seem to hear, upon the melancholy wind, the old songs of the 
minstrels ; sometimes, would dream, in his blindness, of the 
light and glitter of the Norman Court. Many and many a 
time, he groped back, in his fancy, to Jerusalem, where he 
had fought so well ; or, at the head of his brave companions, 
bowed his feathered helmet to the shouts of welcome greeting 
him in Italy, and seemed again to walk among the sunny 
vineyards, or on the shore of the blue sea, with his lovely 
wife. And then, thinking of her grave, and of his fatherless 
bo} T , he would stretch out his solitary arms and weep. 

At length one day there lay in prison dead, with cruel and 
disfiguring scars upon his e3 T elids, bandaged from his jailer's 
sight, but on which the eternal heavens looked down, a worn 
old man of eighty. He had once been Robert of Normandy . 
Pity him ! 



HENRY THE FIRST. ^7 

At the time when Robert of Normandy was taken prisoner 
by his brother, Robert's little son was only five years old. 
This child was taken, too, and carried before the King, sob- 
bing and crying ; for, young as he was, he knew he had good 
reason to be afraid of his Ro}al uncle. The King was not 
much accustomed to pity those who were in his power, but 
his cold heart seemed for the moment to soften towards the 
boy. He was observed to make a great effort, as if to pre- 
vent himself from being cruel, and ordered the child to be 
taken away ; whereupon a certain Baron, who had married a 
daughter of Duke Robert's (by name, Helie of Saint Saen), 
took charge of him, tenderly. The King's gentleness did not 
las't long. Before two years were over, he sent messengers 
to this lord's Castle to seize the child and bring him away. 
The Baron was not there at the time, but his servants were 
faithful, and carried the bo}^ off in his sleep and hid him. 
When the Baron came home, and was told what the King had 
done, he took the child abroad, and leading him by the hand, 
went from King to King and from Court to Court, relating 
how the child had a claim to the throne of England, and how 
his Uncle the King, knowing that he had that claim, would 
have murdered him, perhaps, but for his escape. 

The } T outh and innocence of the pretty little William Fitz- 
Robert (for that was his name) made him man} T friends at 
that time. When he became a young man, the King of 
France, uniting with the French Counts of Anjou and Flan- 
ders, supported his cause against the King of England, and 
took many of the King's towns and castles in Normandy. 
But, King Henry, artful and cunning always, bribed some of 
William's friends with mone} T , some with promises, some with 
power. He bought off the Count of Anjou, by promising to 
many his eldest son, also named William, to the Count's 
daughter ; and indeed the whole trust of this King's life was 
in such bargains, and he believed (as man} T another King has 
done since, and as one King did in France a very little time 
ago) that every man's truth and honor can be bought at some 



78 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

price. For all this, he was so afraid of William Fitz-Robert 
and his friends, that, for a long time, he believed his life to 
be in danger ; and never lay down to sleep, even in his pal- 
ace surrounded by his guards, without having a sword and 
buckler at his bedside. 

To strengthen his power, the King with great ceremony be- 
trothed his eldest daughter Matilda, then a child only eight 
years old, to be the wife of Henry the Fifth, the Emperor of 
Germany. To raise her marriage-portion, he taxed the Eng- 
lish people in a most oppressive manner ; then treated them 
to a great procession to restore their good humor ; and sent 
Matilda away, in fine state, with the German ambassadors, 
to be educated in the county of her future husband. 

And now his Queen, Maud the Good, unhappily died. It 
was a sad thought for that gentle lady, that the only hope 
with which she had married a man whom she had never loved 
■ — the hope of reconciling the Norman and English races — 
had failed. At the very time of her death, Normandy and 
all France was in arms against England ; for, so soon as his 
last danger was over, King Henry had been false to all the 
French powers he had promised, bribed, and bought, and 
they had naturally united against him. After some fighting, 
however, in which few suffered but the unhappy common 
people (who always suffered, whatsoever was the matter), he 
began to promise, bribe, and buy again ; and by those means, 
and by the help of the Pope, who exerted himself to save 
more bloodshed, and by solemnly declaring, over and over 
again, that he really was in earnest this time, and would keep 
his word, the King made peace. 

One of the first consequences of this peace was, that the 
King went over to Normandy with his son Prince William and 
a great retinue, to have the Prince acknowledged as his suc- 
cessor by the Norman nobles, and to contract the promised 
marriage (this was one of the many promises the King had 
broken) between him and the daughter of the Count of An- 
jou. Both these things were triumphantly done, with great 



HENRY THE FIRST. 79 

show and rejoicing ; and on the twenty-fifth of November, in 
the year one thousand one hundred and twent}", the whole 
retinue prepared to embark at the Port of Barfleur, for the 
voj'age home. 

On that day, and at that place, there came to the King, 
Fitz-Stephen, a sea-captain, and said : — 

" My liege, my father served }^our father all his life, upon 
the sea. He steered the ship with the golden boy upon the 
prow, in which your father sailed to conquer England. I be- 
seech you to grant me the same office. I have a fair vessel 
in the harbor here, called The White Ship, manned by fifty 
sailors of renown. I pray you, Sire, to let your servant have 
the nonor of steering } r ou in The White Ship to England." 

"I am sorry, friend," replied the King, "that my vessel 
is already chosen, and that I cannot (therefore) sail with the 
son of the man who served my father. But the Prince and 
all his company shall go along with you, in the fair White 
Ship, manned by the fifty sailors of renown." 

An hour or two afterwards, the King set sail in the vessel 
he had chosen, accompanied by other vessels, and, sailing all 
night with a fair and gentle wind, arrived upon the coast of 
England in the morning. While it was yet night, the people 
in some of those ships heard a faint wild cry come over the 
sea, and wondered what it was. 

Now, the Prince was a dissolute, debauched young man of 
eighteen, who bore no love to the English, and had declared 
that when he came to the throne he would yoke them to the 
plough like oxen. He went aboard The White Ship, with 
one hundred and forty 3 T outhful Nobles like himself, among 
whom were eighteen noble ladies of the highest rank. All 
this gay company, with their servants and the fifty sailors, 
made three hundred souls aboard the fair White Ship. 

" Give three casks of wine, Fitz-Stephen," said the Prince, 
"to the fifty sailors of renown ! My father the King has 
sailed out of the harbor. What time is there to make merry 
here, and yet reach England with the rest?" 



80 A CHILD'S HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. 

"Prince," said Fitz-Stephen, "before morning, my fifty 
and The White Ship shall overtake the swiftest vessel in at- 
tendance on your father the King, if we sail at midnight ! " 

Then, the Prince commanded to make merry ; and the 
sailors drank out the three casks of wine ; and the Prince 
and all the noble company danced in the moonlight on the 
deck of The White Ship. 

When, at last, she shot out of the harbor of Barfleur, there 
was not a sober seaman on board. But the sails were all set, 
and the oars all going merrily. Fitz-Stephen had the helm. 
The gay young nobles and the beautiful ladies, wrapped in 
mantles of various bright colors to protect them from the 
cold, talked, laughed, and sang. The Prince encouraged 
the fifty sailors to row harder yet, for the honor of The White 
Ship. 

Crash ! A terrific cry broke from three hundred hearts. 
It was the cry the people in the distant vessels of the King 
heard faintly on the water. The White Ship had struck Upon 
a rock — was filling — going down ! 

Fitz-Stephen hurried the Prince into a boat, with some few 
Nobles. "Push off," he whispered ; " and row to the land. 
It is not far, and the sea is smooth. The rest of us must 
die." 

But, as they rowed away, fast, from the sinking ship, the 
Prince heard the voice of his sister Marie, the Countess of 
Perche, calling for help. He never in his life had been so 
good as he was then. He cried in an agon}-, " Row back at 
any risk ! I cannot bear to leave her ! " 

They rowed back. As the Prince held out his arms to 
catch his sister, such numbers leaped in that the boat was 
overset. And in the same instant The White Ship went 
down. 

Only two men floated. They both clung to the main yard 
of the ship, which had broken from the mast, and now sup- 
ported them. One asked the other who he was? He said, 
"I am a nobleman, Godrey by name, the son of Gilbert 



HENRY THE FIRST. 81 

de l'Aigle. And you?" said he. "I am Berold, a poor 
butcher of Rouen," was the answer. Then, they said to- 
gether, " Lord be merciful to us both ! " and tried to encour- 
age bne another, as they drifted in the cold benumbing sea 
on that unfortunate November night. 

B} T -and-by, another man came swimming towards them, 
whom the}^ knew, when he pushed aside his long wet hair, to 
be Fitz-Stephen. u Where is the Prince? " said he. " Gone ! 
Gone ! " the two cried together. " Neither he, nor his brother, 
nor his sister, nor the King's niece, nor her brother, nor any 
one of all the brave three hundred, noble or commoner, ex- 
cept we three, has risen above the water!" Fitz-Stephen, 
with a ghastly face, cried, " Woe ! woe, to me ! " and sunk 
to the bottom. 

The other two clung to the jixrd for some hours. At length 
the young noble said faintly, "I am exhausted, and chilled 
with the cold, and can hold no longer. Farewell, good friend ! 
God preserve you ! " So, he dropped and sunk ; and of all 
the brilliant crowd, the poor Butcher, of Rouen alone was 
saved. In the morning some fishermen saw him floating in 
his sheep-skin coat, and got him into their boat — the sole 
relater of the dismal tale. 

For three days, no one dared to cany the intelligence to 
the King. At length they sent into his presence a little boy, 
who, weeping bitterly and kneeling at his feet, told him that 
The White Ship was lost with all on board. The King fell 
to the ground like a dead man, and never, never afterwards 
was seen to smile. 

But he plotted again, and promised again, and bribed and 
bought again, in his old deceitful wsty. Having no son to 
succeed him, after all his pains ("The Prince will never 
yoke us to the plough, now ! " said the English people) , he 
took a second wife — Adelais or Alice, a Duke's daughter, 
and the Pope's niece. Having no more children, however, 
he proposed to the Barons to swear that they would recognize 
as his successor his daughter Matilda, whom, as she was now 



82 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

a widow, he married to the eldest son of the Count of Anjou, 
Geoffrey, surnamed Plant agenet, from a custom he had of 
wearing a sprig of flowering broom (called Genet in French) 
in his cap for a feather. As one false man usually makes 
many, and as a false King, in particular, is pretty certain to 
make a false Court, the Barons took the oath about the suc- 
cession of Matilda (and her children after her) , twice over, 
without in the least intending to keep it. The King was now 
relieved from any remaining fears of William Fitz-Robert, by 
his death in the Monastery of St. Omer, in France, at twenty- 
six years old, of a pike-wound in the hand. And as Matilda 
gave birth to three sons, he thought the succession to the 
throne secure. 

He spent most of the latter part of his life, which was 
troubled by family quarrels, in Normancty, to be near Ma- 
tilda. When he had reigned upwards of thirty-five years, 
and was sixty-seven }^ears old, he died of an indigestion and 
fever, brought on b} T eating, when he was far from well, of a 
fish called Lamprey, against which he had often been cau- 
tioned by his physicians. His remains were brought over to 
Reading Abbey to be buried. 

You may perhaps hear the cunning and promise-breaking 
of King Henry the First, called "policy" by some people, 
and " diplomacy " by others. Neither of these fine words 
will in the least mean that it was true ; and nothing that is 
not true can possibly be good. 

His greatest merit, that I know of, was his love of learn- 
ing. I should have given him greater credit even for that, if 
it had been strong enough to induce him to spare the eyes of 
a certain poet he once took prisoner, who was a knight be- 
sides. But he ordered the poet's eyes to be torn from his 
head, because he had laughed at him in his verses ; and the 
poet, in the pain of that torture, clashed out his own brains 
against his prison wall. King Heniy the First was avaricious, 
revengeful, and so false, that I suppose a man never lived 
whose word was less to be relied upon. 



MATILDA AND STEPHEN. 83 



CHAPTER XI. 

ENGLAND UNDER MATILDA AND STEPHEN. 

The King was no sooner dead than all the plans and 
schemes he had labored at so long, and lied so much for, 
crumbled away like a hollow heap of sand. Stephen, whom 
he had never mistrusted or suspected, started up to claim the 
throne. 

Stephen was the son of Adela, the Conqueror's daughter, 
married to the Count of Blois. To Stephen, and to his 
brother Henry, the late King had been liberal ; making Hen- 
r} T Bishop of Winchester, and finding a good marriage for 
Stephen, and much enriching him. .This did not prevent 
Stephen from hastily producing a false witness, a servant of 
the late King, to swear that the King had named him for his 
heir upon his death-bed. On this evidence the Archbishop 
of Canterbury crowned him. The new King, so suddenly 
made, lost not a moment in seizing the Royal treasure, and 
hiring foreign soldiers with some of it to protect his throne. 

If the dead King had even done as the false witness said, 
he would have had small right to will away the English peo- 
ple, like so many sheep and oxen, without their consent. 
But he had, in fact, bequeathed all his territory to Matilda ; 
who, supported by Robert, Earl of Gloucester, soon began 
to dispute the crown. Some of the powerful barons and 
priests took her side ; some took Stephen's ; all fortified their 
castles ; and again the miserable English people were in- 
volved in war, from which they could never derive advantage 
whosoever was victorious, and in which all parties plundered, 
tortured, starved, and ruined them. 



84 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Five 3 T ears had passed since the death of Henry the First — 
and during those five years there had been two terrible inva- 
sions by the people of Scotland under their King, David, 
who was at last defeated with all his arnry — when Matilda, 
attended by her brother Robert and a large force, appeared 
in England to maintain her claim. A battle was fought be- 
tween her troops and King Stephen's at Lincoln ; in which 
the King himself was taken prisoner, after bravely fighting 
until his battle-axe and sword were broken, and was carried 
into strict confinement at Gloucester. Matilda then submitted 
herself to the Priests, and the Priests crowned her Queen of 
England. 

She did not long enjoy this dignity. The people of Lon- 
don had a great affection for Stephen ; man}^ of the Barons 
considered it degrading to be ruled by a woman ; and the 
Queen's temper was so haughty that she made innumerable 
enemies. The people of London revolted ; and, in alliance 
with the troops of Stephen, besieged her at Winchester, 
where they took her brother Robert prisoner, whom, as her 
best soldier and chief general, she was glad to exchange for 
Stephen himself, who thus regained his liberty. Then, the 
long war went on afresh. Once, she was pressed so hard in 
the Castle of Oxford, in the winter weather when the snow 
lay thick upon the ground, that her only chance of escape 
was to dress herself all in white, and, accompanied by no 
more than three faithful Knights, dressed in like manner that 
their figures might not be seen from Stephen's camp as they 
passed over the snow, to steal away on foot, cross the frozen 
Thames, walk a long distance, and at last gallop away on 
horseback. All this she did, but to no great purpose then ; 
for her brother dying while the struggle was yet going on, she 
at last withdrew to Normandy. 

In two or three 3-ears after her withdrawal her cause ap- 
peared in England, afresh, in the person of her son Henry, 
young Plantagenet, who, at only eighteen years of age, was 
very powerful : not only on account of his mother having 




ESCAPE OF THE EMPRESS MAUD FROM OXFORD, 



MATILDA AND STEPHEN. 85 

resigned all Normandy to him, but also from his having mar- 
ried Eleanor, the divorced wife of the French King, a bad 
woman, who had great possessions in France. Louis, the 
French King, not relishing this arrangement, helped Eustace, 
King Stephen's son, to invade Normandy : but Henry drove 
their united forces out of that country, and then returned 
here to assist his partisans, whom the King was then besieg- 
ing at Wallingford upon the Thames. Here, for two days, 
divided only by the river, the two armies lay encamped op- 
posite to one another — on the eve, as it seemed to all men, 
of another desperate fight, when the Earl of Arundel took 
heart and said ' ' that it was not reasonable to prolong the 
unspeakable miseries of two kingdoms to minister to the 
ambition of two princes." 

Many other noblemen repeating and supporting this when 
it was once uttered, Stephen and young Plantagenet went 
down, each to his own bank of the river, and held a conver- 
sation across it, in which they arranged a truce ; very much 
to the dissatisfaction of Eustace, who - swaggered away with 
some followers, and laid violent hands on the Abbey of St. 
Eclmund's-Bury, where he presently died mad. The truce 
led to a solemn council at Winchester, in which it was agreed 
that Stephen should retain the crown, on condition of his 
declaring Henry his successor ; that William, another son of 
the King's, should inherit his father's rightful possessions ; 
and that all the Crown lands which Stephen had given away 
should be recalled, and all the Castles he had permitted to be 
built demolished. Thus terminated the bitter war, which had 
now lasted fifteen years, and had again laid England waste. 
In the next year Stephen died, after a troubled reign of 
nineteen years. 

Although King Stephen was, for the time in which he lived, 
a humane and moderate man, with many excellent qualities ; 
and although nothing worse is known of him than his usurpa- 
tion of the Crown, which he probably excused to himself by 
the consideration that King Heniy the First was an usurper 



S6 A CHILD'S HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. 

too — which was no excuse at all ; the people of England 
suffered more in these dread nineteen years, than at any for- 
mer period even of their suffering history. In the division of 
the nobility between the two rival claimants of the Crown, 
and in the growth of what is called the Feudal System (which 
made the peasants the born vassals and mere slaves of the 
Barons), every Noble had his strong Castle, where he reigned 
the cruel king of all the neighboring people. Accordingly, 
he perpetrated whatever cruelties he chose. And never were 
worse cruelties committed upon earth than in wretched Eng- 
land in those nineteen years. 

The writers who were living then describe them fearfully. 
They say that the castles were filled with devils rather than 
with men ; that the peasants, men and women, were put into 
dungeons for their gold and silver, were tortured with fire 
and smoke, were hung up b}- the thumbs, were hung up by 
the heels with great weights to their heads, were torn with 
jagged irons, killed with hunger, broken to death in narrow 
chests filled with sharp-pointed stones, murdered in countless 
fiendish ways. In England there was no corn, no meat, no 
cheese, no butter, there were no tilled lands, no harvests. 
Ashes of burnt towns, and dreary wastes, were all that the 
traveller, fearful of the robbers who prowled abroad at all 
hours, would see in 'a long da}^'s journey ; and from sunrise 
until night, he would not come upon a home. 

The clergy sometimes suffered, and heavily too, from pil- 
lage, but many of them had castles of their own, and fought 
in helmet and armor like the barons, and drew lots with other 
fighting men for their share of booty. The Pope (or Bishop 
of Rome), on King Stephen's resisting his ambition, laid 
England under an interdict at one period of this reign ; 
which means that he allowed no service to be performed in 
the churches, no couples to be married, no bells to be rung, 
no dead bodies to be buried. Any man having the power to 
refuse these things, no matter whether he were called a Pope 
or a Poulterer, would, of course have the power of afflicting 



MATILDA AND STEPHEN. 87 

numbers of innocent people. That nothing might be want- 
ing to the miseries of King Stephen's time, the Pope threw 
in this contribution to the public store — not very like the 
widow's contribution as I think, when Our Saviour sat in 
Jerusalem over-against the Treasury, ' ' and she threw in two 
mites, which make a farthing." 



S8 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 



CHAPTER XII. 

england under henry the second. 
Part the First. 

Henry Plantagenet, when he was but twenty-one years 
old, quietly succeeded to the throne of England, accord- 
ing to his agreement made with the late King at Win- 
chester. Six weeks after Stephen's death, he and his Queen, 
Eleanor, were crowned in that city ; into which they rode on 
horseback in great state, side by side, amidst much shout- 
ing and rejoicing, and clashing of music, and strewing of 
flowers. 

The reign of King Henry the Second began well. The 
King had great possessions, and (what with his own rights, 
and what with those of his wife) was lord of one-third part 
of France. He was a young man of vigor, ability, and reso- 
lution, and immediately applied himself to remove some of 
the evils which had arisen in the last unhappy reign. He 
revoked all the grants of land that had been hastily made, on 
either side, during the late struggles ; he obliged numbers of 
disorderly soldiers to depart from England ; he reclaimed all 
the castles belonging to the Crown ; and he forced the wicked 
nobles to pull down their own castles, to the number of 
eleven hundred, in which such dismal cruelties had been 
inflicted on the people. The King's brother, Geoffrey, rose 
against him in France, while he was so well employed, and 
rendered it necessary for him to repair to that country ; 
where, after he had subdued and made a friendly arrange- 
ment with his brother (who did not live long), his ambition 



HENEY THE SECOND. 89 

to increase his possessions involved him in a war with the 
French King, Louis, with whom he had been on such friendly 
terms just before, that to the French King's infant daughter, 
then a baby in the cradle, he had promised one of his little 
sons in marriage, who was a child of five years old. How- 
ever, the war came to nothing at last, and the Pope made 
the two Kings friends again. 

Now, the clergy, in the troubles of the last reign, had gone 
on very ill indeed. There were all kinds of criminals among 
them — murderers, thieves, and vagabonds; and the worst 
of the matter was, that the good priests would not give up 
the bad priests to justice, when they committed crimes, but 
persisted in sheltering and defending them. The King, well 
knowing that there could be no peace or rest in England 
while such things lasted , resolved to reduce the power of the 
clergy ; and, when he had reigned seven years, found (as he 
considered) a good opportunity for doing so, in the death of 
the Archbishop of Canterbury. "I will have for the new 
Archbishop," thought the King, "a friend in whom I can 
trust, who will help me to humble these rebellious priests, 
and to have them dealt with, when they do wrong, as other 
men who do wrong are dealt with." So, he resolved to 
make his favorite, the new Archbishop; and this favorite 
was so extraordinary a man, and his story is so curious, that 
I must tell you all about him. 

Once upon a time, a worthy merchant of London, named 
Gilbert X Becket, made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, 
and was taken prisoner by a Saracen lord. This lord, who 
treated him kindly and not like a slave, had one fair daughter, 
who fell in love with the merchant ; and who told him that 
she wanted to become a Christian, and was willing to marry 
him if they could fly to a Christian country. The merchant 
returned her love, until he found an opportunity to escape, 
when he did not trouble himself about the Saracen lady, but 
escaped with his servant Richard, who had been taken pris- 
oner along with him, and arrived in England and forgot her. 



90 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

The Saracen lady, who was more loving than the merchant, 
left her father's house in disguise to follow him, and made 
her wslj, under many hardships, to the sea-shore. The mer- 
chant had taught her only two English words (for I suppose 
he must have learnt the Saracen tongue himself, and made 
love in that language), of which London was one, and his 
own name, Gilbert, the other. She went among the ships, 
saying, " London ! London ! " over and over again, until the 
sailors understood that she wanted to find an English vessel 
that would carry her there ; so they showed her such a ship, 
and she paid for her passage with some of her jewels, and 
Bailed away. Well ! The merchant was sitting in his count- 
ing-house in London one day, when he heard a great noise in 
the street ; and presently Richard came running in from the* 
warehouse, with his eyes wide open and his breath almost 
gone, saying, "Master, master, here is the Saracen lady!" 
The merchant thought Richard was mad ; but Richard said, 
"No, master! As I live, the Saracen lady is going up and 
down the city, calling Gilbert ! Gilbert ! " Then, he took 
the merchant by the sleeve, and pointed out at window ; and 
there they saw her among the gables and water-spouts of the 
dark dirty street, in her foreign dress, so forlorn, surrounded 
by a wondering crowd, and passing slowly along, calling 
Gilbert, Gilbert ! When the merchant saw her, and thought 
of the tenderness she had shown him in his captivity, and of 
her constancy, his heart was moved, and he ran down into 
the street ; and she saw him coming, and with a great cry 
fainted in his arms. They were married without loss of time, 
and Richard (who was an excellent man) danced with joy 
the whole day of the wedding ; and they all lived happy ever 
afterwards. 

This merchant and this Saracen lady had one son, Thomas 
X Becket. He it was who became the Favorite of King 
Henry the Second. 

He had become Chancellor, when the King thought of 
making him Archbishop. He was clever, gay, well educated, 



HENRY THE SECOND. 91 

brave ; had fought in several battles in France ; had defeated 
a French knight in single combat, and brought his horse 
away as a token of the victory. He lived in a noble palace, 
he was the tutor of the young Prince Hemy, he was served 
by one hundred and forty knights, his riches were immense. 
The King once sent him as his ambassador to France ; and 
the French people, beholding in what state he travelled, cried 
out in the streets, ' ' How splendid must the King of England 
be, when this is only the Chancellor ! " They had good rea- 
son to wonder at the magnificence of Thomas a Becket, for, 
when he entered a French town, his procession was headed 
by two hundred and fifty singing boys ; then, came his 
houricls in couples ; then, eight wagons, each drawn by five 
horses driven by five drivers ; two of the wagons filled with 
strong ale to be given away to the people ; four, with his 
gold and silver plate and stately clothes ; two, with the 
dresses of his numerous servants. Then, came twelve horses, 
each with a monkey on his back ; then, a train of people 
bearing shields and leading fine war-horses splendidly 
equipped ; then, falconers with hawks upon their wrists ; 
then, a host of knights, and gentlemen and priests ; then, the 
Chancellor with his brilliant garments flashing in the sun, 
and all the people capering and shouting with delight. 

The King was well pleased with all this, thinking that it 
only made himself the more magnificent to have so magnifi- 
cent a favorite ; but he sometimes jested with the Chancellor 
upon his splendor too. Once, when they were riding together 
through the streets of London in hard winter weather, they 
saw a shivering old man in rags. ' ' Look at the poor object ! " 
said the King. "Would it not be a charitable act to give 
that aged man a comfortable warm cloak ? " " Undoubtedly 
it would," said Thomas a Becket, " and you do well, Sir, to 
think of such Christian duties." " Come ! " cried the King, 
" then give him }^our cloak ! " It was made of rich crimson 
trimmed with ermine. The King tried to pull it off, the 
Chancellor tried to keep it on, both were near rolling from 



92 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

their saddles in the mud, when the Chancellor submitted, and 
the King gave the cloak to the old beggar : much to the beg- 
gar's astonishment, and much to the merriment of all the 
courtiers in attendance. For, courtiers are not only eager to 
laugh when the King laughs, but they really do enjoy a laugh 
against a Favorite. 

U I will make," thought King Henry the Second, "this 
Chancellor of mine, Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canter- 
bury. He will then be the head of the Church, and, being 
devoted to me, will help me to correct the Church. He has 
always upheld my power against the power of the clergj r , and 
once publicly told some bishops (I remember) , that men of 
the Church were equally bound to me with men of the sword. 
Thomas a Becket is the man, of all other men in England, to 
help me in my great design." So the King, regardless of all 
objection, either that he was a fighting man, or a lavish man, 
or a courtly man, or a man of pleasure, or anything but a 
likely man for the office, made him Archbishop accordingly. 

Now, Thomas a Becket was proud and loved to be famous. 
He was already famous for the pomp of his life, for his riches, 
his gold and silver plate, his wagons, horses, and attendants. 
He could do no more in that way than he had done ; and 
being tired of that kind of fame (which is a very poor one) ; 
he longed to have his name celebrated for something else. 
Nothing, he knew, would render him so famous in the world, 
as the setting of his utmost power and ability against the 
utmost power and ability of the King. He resolved with the 
whole strength of his mind to do it. 

He may have had some secret grudge against the King 
besides. The King may have offended his proud humor at 
some time or other, for anything I know. I think it likely, 
because it is a common thing for Kings, Princes, and other 
great people, to try the tempers of their favorites rather 
severely. Even the little affair of the crimson cloak must 
have been anything but a pleasant one to a haughty man. 
Thomas a Becket knew better than any one in England what 



HENRY THE SECOND. 93 

the King expected of him. In all his sumptuous life, he had 
never yet been in a position to disappoint the King. He 
could take up that proud stand now, as head of the Church ; 
and he determined that it should be written in history, either 
that he subdued the King, or that the King subdued him. 

So, of a sudden, he completely altered the whole manner 
of his life. He turned off all his brilliant followers, ate 
coarse food, drank bitter water, wore next his skin sackcloth 
covered with dirt and vermin (for it was then thought very 
religious to be very dirty) , flogged his back to punish him- 
self, lived chiefty in a little cell, washed the feet of thirteen 
poor people every day, and looked as miserable as he possi- 
bly 'Could. If he had put twelve hundred monkeys on horse- 
back instead of twelve, and had gone in procession with eight 
thousand wagons instead of eight, he could not have half 
astonished the people so much as by this great change. It 
soon caused him to be more talked about as an Archbishop 
than he had been as a Chancellor. 

The King was very angiy ; and was made still more so, 
when the new Archbishop, claiming various estates from the 
nobles as being rightfully Church property, required the 
King himself, for the same reason, to give up Rochester 
Castle, and Rochester City too. Not satisfied with this, he 
declared that no power but himself should appoint a priest to 
any Church in the part of England over which he was Arch- 
bishop ; and when a certain gentleman of Kent made such 
an appointment, as he claimed to have the right to do, 
Thomas a Becket excommunicated him. 

Excommunication was, next to the Interdict I told you of 
at the close of the last chapter, the great weapon of the 
clergy. It consisted in declaring the person who was excom- 
municated, an outcast from the Church and from all religious 
offices ; and in cursing him all over, from the top of his head 
to the sole of his foot, whether he was standing up, lying 
down, sitting, kneeling, walking, running, hopping, jumping, 
gaping, coughing, sneezing, or whatever else he was doing. 



94 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

This unchristian nonsense would of course have made no sort 
of difference to the person cursed — who could sa} r his pra} r ers 
at home if he were shut out of church, and whom none but 
God could judge — but for the fears and superstitions of the 
people, who avoided excommunicated persons, and made their 
lives unhappy. So, the King said to the New Archbishop, 
' ' Take off this Excommunication from this gentleman of 
Kent." To which the Archbishop replied, "I shall do no 
such thing." 

The quarrel went on. A priest in Worcestershire com- 
mitted a most dreadful murder, that aroused the horror of the 
whole nation. The King demanded to have this wretch de- 
livered up, to be tried in the same court and in the same way 
as any other murderer. The Archbishop refused, and kept 
him in the Bishop's prison. The King, holding a solemn 
assembly in Westminster Hall, demanded that in future all 
priests found guilty before their Bishops of crimes against the 
law of the land should be considered priests no longer, and 
should be delivered over to the law of the land for punishment. 
The Archbishop again refused. The King required to know 
whether the clergy would obey the ancient customs of the 
country? Every priest there, but one, said, after Thomas a 
Becket, " Saving my order." This really meant that they 
would only obey those customs when they did not interfere 
with their own claims ; and the King went out of the Hall 
in great wrath. 

Some of the clergy began to be afraid, now, that thej^ were 
going too far. Though Thomas a Becket was otherwise as 
unmoved as Westminster Hall, they prevailed upon him, for 
the sake of their fears, to go to the King at Woodstock, and 
promise to observe the ancient customs of the country, with- 
out saying anything about his order. The King received this 
submission favorably, and summoned a great council of the 
clergy to meet at the Castle of Clarendon, by Salisbmy. 
But when the council met, the Archbishop again insisted on 
the words " saving my order;" and he still insisted, though 



HENRY THE SECOND. 95 

lords entreated him, and priests wept before him and knelt 
to him, and an adjoining room was thrown open, filled with 
armed soldiers of the King, to threaten him. At length he 
gave way, for that time, and the ancient customs (which in- 
cluded what the King had demanded in vain) were stated in 
writing, and were signed and sealed by the chief of the clergy, 
and were called the Constitutions of Clarendon. 

The quarrel went on, for all that. The Archbishop tried 
to see the King. The King would not see him. The Arch- 
bishop tried to escape from England. The sailors on the 
coast would launch no boat to take him away. Then, he 
again resolved to do his worst in opposition to the King, and 
began openly to set the ancient customs at defiance. 

The King summoned him before a great council at North- 
ampton, where he accused him of high treason, and made a 
claim against him, which was not a just one, for an enormous 
sum of money. Thomas a Becket was alone against the 
whole assembly, and the very Bishops advised him to resign 
his office and abandon his contest with the King. His great 
anxiety and agitation stretched him on a sick-bed for two 
da}^s, but he was still undaunted. He went to the adjourned 
council, carrying a great cross in his right hand, and sat 
down holding it erect before him. The King angrily retired 
into an inner room. The whole assembly angrily retired and 
left him there. But there he sat. The Bishops came out 
again in a body, and renounced him as a traitor. He only 
said, " I hear ! " and sat there still. They retired again into 
the inner room, and his trial proceeded without him. By- 
and-bjr, the Earl of Leicester, heading the barons, came out 
to read his sentence. He refused to hear it, denied the power 
of the court, and said he would refer his cause to the Pope. 
As he walked out of the hall, with the cross in his hand, some 
of those present picked up rushes — rushes were strewn upon 
the floors in those dsijs by way of carpet — and threw them 
at him. He proudly turned his head, and said that were he 
not Archbishop, he would chastise those cowards with the 



9b A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

sword he had known how to use in b3 T gone da} T s. He then 
mounted his horse, and rode away, cheered and surrounded 
by the common people, to whom he threw open his house that 
night and gave a supper, supping with them himself. That 
same night he secretly departed from the town ; and so, trav- 
elling by night and hiding b}^ day, and calling himself ' ' Brother 
Dearman," got away not without difficulty, to Flanders. 

The struggle still went on. The angry King took posses- 
sion of the revenues of the archbishopric, and banished all 
the relations and servants of Thomas a Becket, to the number 
of four hundred. The Pope and the French King both pro- 
tected him, and an abbey was assigned for his residence. 
Stimulated by this support Thomas a Becket, on a great fes- 
tival day , formally proceeded to a great church crowded with 
people, and going up into the pulpit publicly cursed and 
excommunicated all who had supported the Constitutions of 
Clarendon ; mentioning many English noblemen by name, 
and not distantly hinting at the King of England himself. 

When intelligence of this new affront was carried to the 
King in his chamber, his passion was so furious that he tore 
his clothes, and rolled like a madman on his bed of straw and 
rushes. But he was soon up and doing. He ordered all the 
ports and coasts of England to be narrowly watched, that no 
letters of Interdict might be brought into the kingdom ; and 
sent messengers and bribes to the Pope's palace at Rome. 
Meanwhile, Thomas a Becket, for his part, was not idle at 
Rome, but constantly employed his utmost arts in his own 
behalf. Thus the contest stood, until there was peace be- 
tween France and England (which had been for some time at 
war) , and until the two children of the two Kings were mar- 
ried in celebration of it. Then, the French King brought 
about a meeting between Henry and his old favorite so long 
his enemy. 

Even then, though Thomas a Becket knelt before the King, 
he was obstinate and immovable as to those words about his 
order. King Louis of France was weak enough in his ven- 



HENRY THE SECOND. 97 

eration for Thomas a Becket and such men, but this was a 
little too much for him. He said that a Becket " wanted to 
be greater than the saints and better than St. Peter," and 
rode awa}' from him with the King of England. His poor 
French Majest} r asked a Becket's pardon for so doing, however, 
soon afterwards, and cut a very pitiful figure. 

At last, and after a world of trouble, it came to this. 
There was another meeting on French ground between King 
Heniy and Thomas a Becket, and it was agreed that Thomas 
a Becket should be Archbishop of Canterbuiy, according to 
the customs of former Archbishops, and that the King should 
put him in possession of the revenues of that post. And now, 
indeed, 3-011 might suppose the struggle at an end, and Thomas a 
Becket at rest. No, not even } r et. For Thomas a Becket hear- 
ing, by some means, that King Henry , when he was in dread 
of his kingdom being placed under an interdict, had had his 
eldest son Prince Henr} T secretly crowned, not only persuaded 
the Pope to suspend the Archbishop of York who had per- 
formed that ceremony, and to excommunicate the Bishops 
who had assisted at it, but sent a messenger of his own into 
England, in spite of all the King's precautions along the 
coast, who delivered the letters of excommunication into the 
Bishops' own hands. Thomas a Becket then came over to 
England himself, after an absence of seven 3-ears. He was 
privately warned that it was dangerous to come, and that an 
ireful knight named Ranulf de Broc, had threatened that he 
should not live to eat a loaf of bread in England ; but he 
came. 

The common people received him well, and marched about 
with him in a soldierly way, armed with such rustic weapons 
as they could get. He tried to see the 3 T oung prince who had 
once been his pupil, but was prevented. He hoped for some 
little support among the nobles and priests, but found none. 
He made the most of the peasants who attended him, and 
feasted them, and went from Canterbury to Harrow-on-the- 
Hill, and from Harrow-on-the-Hill back to Canterbury, and 

7 



98 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

on Christmas Day preached in the Cathedral there, and told 
the people in his sermon that he had come to die among them, 
and that it was likely he would be murdered. He had no fear, 
however — or, if he had an}^, he had much more obstinacy — 
for he, then and there, excommunicated three of his enemies, 
of whom Ranulf cle Broc the ireful knight was one. 

As men in general had no fane} 7 for being cursed, in their 
sitting and walking, and gaping and sneezing, and all the rest 
of it, it was very natural in the persons so freely excommu- 
nicated to complain to the King. It was equally natural in the 
King, who had hoped that this troublesome opponent was at 
last quieted, to fall into a mighty rage when he heard of these 
new affronts ; and, on the Archbishop of York telling him that 
he never could hope for rest whilst Thomas a Becket lived, to 
cry out hastily before his court, " Have I no one here who will 
deliver me from this man ? " There were four knights present, 
who, hearing the King's words, looked at one another, and 
went out. 

The names of these knights were Reginald Fitzurse, 
William Tracy, Hugh de Morville, and Richard Brito ; 
three of whom had been in the train of Thomas a Becket in 
the old days of his splendor. They rode away on horseback, 
in a very secret manner, and on the third day after Christmas 
Day arrived at Saltwood House, not far from Canterbuiy, 
which belonged to the family of Ranulf de Broc. They 
quietly collected some followers here, in case they should 
need any ; and proceeding to Canterbury, suddenly appeared 
(the four knights and twelve men) before the Archbishop, in 
his own house, at two o'clock in the afternoon. They neither 
bowed nor spoke, but sat down on the floor in silence, staring 
at the Archbishop. 

Thomas a Becket said, at length, " What do you want ?" 

" We want," said Reginald Fitzurse, " the excommunica- 
tion taken from the Bishops, and you to answer for your 
offences to the King." 

Thomas a Becket defiantly replied, that the power of the 



HENRY THE SECOND. 99 

clergy was above the power of the King. That it was not 
for such men as the} 7 were, to threaten him. That if he were 
threatened by all the swords in England, he would never 
yieW 

" Then we will do more than threaten ! " said the knights. 
And the} 7 went out with the twelve men, and put on their 
armor, and drew their shining swords, and came back. 

His servants, in the meantime, had shut up and barred the 
great gate of the palace. At first, the knights tried to shat- 
ter it with their battle-axes ; but, being shown a window by 
which they could enter, they let the gate alone, and climbed 
in that way. While they were battering at the door, the 
attendants of Thomas a Becket had implored him to take 
refuge in the Cathedral ; in which, as a sanctuary or sacred 
place, they thought the knights would dare to do no violent 
deed. He told them, again and again, that he would not 
stir. Hearing the distant voices of the monks singing the 
evening service, however, he said it was now his duty to 
attend, and therefore, and for no other reason, he would go. 

There was a near way between his Palace and the Cathe- 
dral, by some beautiful old cloisters which you may yet see. 
He went into the Cathedral, without any hurry, and having 
the Cross carried before him as usual. When he was safely 
there, his servants would have fastened the door, but he said 
No ! it was the house of God and not a fortress. 

As he spoke, the shadow of Reginald Fitzurse appeared in 
the Cathedral doorway, darkening the little light there was 
outside, on the dark winter evening. This knight said, in a 
strong voice, "Follow me, loyal servants of the King!" 
The rattle of the armor of the other knights echoed through 
the Cathedral, as they came clashing in. 

It was so dark, in the lofty aisles and among the stately 
pillars of the church, and there were so many hiding-places 
in the crypt below and in the narrow passages above, that 
Thomas a Becket might even at that pass have »aved him- 
self if he would. But he would not. He told the monks 



100 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

resolutely that he would not. And though they all dispersed 
and left him there with no other follower than Edward 
Gryme, his faithful cross-bearer, he was as firm then as ever 
he had been in his life. 

The knights came on, through the darkness, making a ter- 
rible noise with their armed tread upon the stone pavement 
of the church. " Where is the traitor ?" they cried out. 
He made no answer. But when they cried, " Where is the 
Archbishop?" he said proudly, "lam here ! " and came out 
of the shade and stood before them. 

The knights had no desire to kill him, if they could rid the 
King and themselves of him by any other means. They told 
him he must either fly or go with them. He said he would 
do neither ; and he threw William Tracy off with such force 
when he took hold of his sleeve, that Tracy reeled again. 
By his reproaches and his steadiness, he so incensed them, 
and exasperated their fierce humor, that Reginald Fitzurse, 
whom he called by an ill name, said, " Then die ! " and struck 
at his head. But the faithful Edward Gryme put out his 
arm, and there received the main force of the blow, so that 
it only made his master bleed. Another voice from among 
the knights again called to Thomas a Becket to fly ; but, with 
his blood running clown his face, and his hands clasped, and 
his head bent, he commended himself to God, and stood 
firm. Then the}' cruelly killed him close to the altar of St. 
Bennet ; and his body fell upon the pavement, which was 
dirtied with his blood and brains. 

It is an awful thing to think of the murdered mortal, who 
had so showered his curses about, tying, all disfigured, in the 
church, where a few lamps here and there were but red specks 
on a pall of darkness ; and to think of the guilt}' knights 
riding awa} T on horseback, looking over their shoulders at 
the dim Cathedral, and remembering what they had left 
inside. 



henhy the second. 101 

Part the Second. 

When the King heard how Thomas a Becket had lost his 
life in Canterbury Cathedral, through the ferocity of the four 
Knights, he was filled with dismay. Some have supposed 
that when the King spoke those hast}' words, "Have I no 
one here who will deliver me from this man ? " he wished, 
and meant a Becket to be slain. But few things are more 
unlikely ; for, besides that the King was not naturally cruel 
(though very passionate) , he was wise and must have known 
full well what any stupid man in his dominions must have 
known, namely, that such a murder would rouse the Pope 
and the whole Church against him. 

He sent respectful messages to the Pope, to represent his 
innocence (except in having uttered the hast}' words) ; 
and he swore solemnly and publicly to his innocence, and 
contrived in time to make his peace. As to the four guilty 
Knights, who fled into Yorkshire, and never again dared to 
show themselves at Court, the Pope excommunicated them ; 
and they lived miserably for some time, shunned b} 7 all their 
countrymen. At last they went humbly to Jerusalem as a 
penance, and there died and were buried. 

It happened, fortunately for the pacifying of the Pope, that 
an opportunity arose very soon after the murder of a Becket, 
for the King to declare his power in Ireland — which was an 
acceptable undertaking to the Pope, as the Irish, who had 
been converted to Christianity by one Patricius (otherwise 
St. Patrick) long ago, before any Pope existed, considered 
that the Pope had nothing at all to do with them, or they 
with the Pope, and accordingly refused to pa}- him Peter's 
Pence, or that tax of a peniry a house which I have elsewhere 
mentioned. The King's opportunity arose in this way. 

The Irish were, at that time, as barbarous a people as you 
can well imagine. The} r were continually quarrelling and 
fighting, cutting one another's throats, slicing one another's 



102 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

noses, burning one another's houses, carrying away one 
another's wives, and committing all sorts of violence. The 
country was divided into five kingdoms — Desmond, Thomond, 
Connaught, Ulster, and Leinster — each governed by a 
separate King, of whom one claimed to be the chief of the 
rest. Now, one of these Kings, named Dermond Mac 
Murrough (a wild kind of name, spelt in more than one wild 
kind of way) , had carried off the wife of a friend of his, and 
concealed her on an island in a bog. The friend resenting 
this (though it was quite the custom of the country) , com- 
plained to the chief King, and, with the chief King's help, 
drove Dermond Mac Murrough out of his dominions. Der- 
mond came over to England for revenge ; and offered to hold 
his realm as a vassal of King Henry, if King Henry would 
help him to regain it. The King consented to these terms ; 
but only assisted him, then, with what were called Letters 
Patent, authorizing any English subjects who were so dis- 
posed, to enter into his service, and aid his cause. 

There was, at Bristol, a certain Earl Richard de Clare, 
called Strongbow ; of no very good character ; needy and 
desperate, and ready for anything that offered him a chance 
of improving his fortunes. There were, in South Wales, two 
other broken knights of the same good-for-nothing sort, 
called Robert Fitz-Stephen, and Maurice Fitz-Gerald. 
These three, each with a small band of followers, took up 
Dermond's cause ; and it was agreed that if it proved suc- 
cessful, Strongbow should marry Dermond's daughter Eva, 
and be declared his heir. 

The trained English followers of these knights were so 
superior in all the discipline of battle to the Irish, that they 
beat them against immense superiority of numbers. In one 
fight, early in the war, they cut off three hundred heads, and 
laid them before Mac Murrough ; who turned them every one 
up with his hands, rejoicing, and, coming to one which was 
the head of a man whom he had much disliked, he grasped it 
by the hair and ears, and tore off the nose and lips with his 



HENRY THE SECOND. 103 

teeth. You may judge from this, what kind of a gentleman 
an Irish King in those times was. The captives, all through 
this war, were horribly treated ; the victorious party making 
nothing of breaking their limbs, and casting them into the 
sea from the tops of high rocks. It was in the midst of the 
miseries and cruelties attendant on the taking of Waterford, 
where the dead lay piled in the streets, and the filthy gutters 
ran with blood, that Strongbow married Eva. An odious 
marriage-company those mounds of corpses must have made, 
I think, and one quite worthy of the young lady's father. 

He died, after Waterford and Dublin had been taken, and 
various successes achieved ; and Strongbow became King of 
Leins'ter. Now came King Henry's opportunity. To re- 
strain the growing power of Strongbow, he himself repaired 
to Dublin, as Strongbow's Royal Master, and deprived him 
of his kingdom, but confirmed him in the enjoyment of great 
possessions. The King, then, holding state in Dublin, re- 
ceived the homage of nearly all the Irish Kings and Chiefs, 
and so came home again with a great addition to his reputa- 
tion as Lord of Ireland, and with a new claim on the favor of 
the Pope. And now, their reconciliation was completed — 
more easily and mildly by the Pope than the King might have 
expected, I think. 

At this period of his reign, when his troubles seemed so 
few and his prospects so bright, those domestic miseries 
began which gradually made the King the most unhapp}^ of 
men, reduced his great spirit, wore away his health, and 
broke his heart. 

He had four sons. Henry, now aged eighteen — his secret 
crowning of whom had given such offence to Thomas a Becket ; 
Richard, aged sixteen ; Geoffrey, fifteen ; and John, his 
favorite, a } x oung boy whom the courtiers named Lackland, 
because he had no inheritance, but to whom the King meant 
to give the Lordship of Ireland. All these misguided boys, 
in their turn, were unnatural sons to him, and unnatural 
brothers to each other. Prince Henry, stimulated b} r the 



104 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

French King, and by his bad mother, Queen Eleanor, began 
the undutiful history. 

First, he demanded that his 3 r onng wife, Margaret, the 
French King's daughter, should be crowned as well as he. 
His father, the King, consented, and it was done. It was no 
sooner done, than he demanded to have a part of his father's 
dominions, during his father's life. This being refused, he 
made off from his father in the night, with his bad heart full 
of bitterness, and took refuge at the French King's Court. 
Within a day or two, his brothers Richard and Geoffrey fol- 
lowed. Their mother tried to join them — escaping in man's 
clothes — but she was seized by King Henry's men, and im- 
mured in prison, where she lay, deservedly, for sixteen years; 
Every day, however, some grasping English nobleman, to 
whom the King's protection of his people from their avarice 
and oppression had given offence, deserted him and joined 
the Princes. Every day he heard some fresh intelligence of 
the Princes levying armies against him ; of Prince Henry's 
wearing a crown before his own ambassadors at the French 
Court, and being called the Junior King of England ; of all 
the Princes swearing never to make peace with him, their 
father, without the consent and approval of the Barons of 
France. But, with his fortitude and energy unshaken, King 
Henry met the shock of these disasters with a resolved and 
cheerful face. He called upon all Royal fathers who had 
sons, to help him, for his cause was theirs ; he hired, out of 
his riches, twenty thousand men to fight the false French 
King, who stirred his own blood against him ; and he carried 
on the war with such vigor, that Louis soon proposed a con- 
ference to treat for peace. 

The conference was held beneath an old wide-spreading 
green elm-tree, upon a plain in France. It led to nothing. 
The war recommenced. Prince Richard began his fighting 
career, by leading an army against his father ; but his father 
beat him and his army back ; and thousands of his men would 
have rued the day in which they fought in such a wicked 



HENRY THE SECOND. 105 

cause, had not the King received news of an invasion of Eng- 
land b} T the Scots, and promptly come home through a great 
storm to repress it. And whether he really began to fear 
that he suffered these troubles because a Becket had been mur- 
dered ; or whether he wished to rise in the favor of the Pope, 
who had now declared a Becket to be a saint, or in the favor 
of his own people, of whom man}^ believed that even a Beck- 
et's senseless tomb could work miracles, I don't know : but 
the King no sooner landed in England than he went straight 
to Canterbury ; and when he came within sight of the distant 
Cathedral, he dismounted from his horse, took off his shoes, 
and walked with bare and bleeding feet to a Becket's grave. 
There, he lay down on the ground, lamenting, in the presence 
of many people ; and by-and-by he went into the Chapter 
House, and, removing his clothes from his back and shoulders, 
submitted himself to be beaten with knotted cords (not beaten 
very hard, I dare say though) by eighty Priests, one after 
another. It chanced that on the very clay when the King 
made this curious exhibition of himself, a complete victory 
was obtained over the Scots ; which very much delighted the 
Priests, who said that it was won because of his great exam- 
ple of repentance. For the Priests in general had found out, 
since a Becket's death, that they admired him of all things — 
though they had hated him very cordially when he was alive. 
The Earl of Flanders, who was at the head of the base 
conspirac t y of the King's unclutiful sons and their foreign 
friends, took the opportunity of the King being thus employed 
at home, to lay siege to Rouen, the capital of Normand} r . 
But the King, who was extraordinarily quick and active in 
all his movements, was at Rouen, too, before it was supposed 
possible that he could have left England ; and there he so 
defeated the said Earl of Flanders, that the conspirators pro- 
posed peace, and his bad sons Henry and Geoffrey submitted. 
Richard resisted for six weeks ; but, being beaten out of 
castle after castle, he at last submitted too, and his father 
forgave him. 



106 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

To forgive these unworthy princes was only to afford them 
breathing- time for new faithlessness. They were so false, 
disloyal, and dishonorable, that they were no more to be 
trusted than common thieves. In the very next year, Prince 
Henry rebelled again, and was again forgiven. In eight 
3'ears more, Prince Richard rebelled against his elder brother ; 
and Prince Geoffrey infamously said that the brothers could 
never agree well together, unless they were united against 
their father. In the very next year after their reconciliation 
by the King, Prince Henry again rebelled against his father ; 
and again submitted, swearing to be true ; and was again 
forgiven ; and again rebelled with Geoffrey. 

But the end of this perfidious Prince was come. He fell 
sick at a French town ; and his conscience terribly reproach- 
ing him with his baseness, he sent messengers to the King 
his father, imploring him to come and see him, and to forgive 
him for the last time on his bed of death. The generous 
King, who had a royal and forgiving mind towards his chil- 
dren always, would have gone ; but this Prince had been so 
unnatural, that the noblemen about the King suspected treach- 
ery, and represented to him that he could not safely trust his 
life with such a traitor, though his own eldest son. Therefore 
the King sent him a ring from off his finger as a token of for- 
giveness ; and when the Prince had kissed it, with much grief 
and many tears, and had confessed to those around him how 
bad, and wicked, and undutiful a son he had been ; he said 
to the attendant Priests : " O, tie a rope about my bod} 7 , and 
draw me out of bed, and lay me down upon a bed of ashes, 
that I may die with pra3^ers to God in a repentant manner ! " 
And so he died, at twenty-seven years old. 

Three years afterwards, Prince Geoffrey, being unhorsed 
at a tournament, had his brains trampled out by a crowd of 
horses passing over him. So, there only remained Prince 
Richard, and Prince John — who had grown to be a } T oung 
man now, and had solemnly sworn to be faithful to his father. 
Richard soon rebelled again, encouraged by his friend the 



HENRY THE SECOND. 107 

French King, Philip the Second (son of Louis, who was 
dead) ; and soon submitted and was again forgiven, swearing 
on the New Testament never to rebel again ; and in another 
year or so, rebelled again ; and, in the presence of his father, 
knelt down on his knee before the King of France , and did 
the French King homage ; and declared that with his aid he 
would possess himself, by force, of all his father's French 
dominions. 

And yet this Eichard called himself a soldier of Our Sav- 
iour ! And yet this Richard wore the Cross, which the Kings 
of France and England had both taken, in the previous } r ear, 
at a brotherly meeting underneath the old wide-spreading 
elm-tree on the plain, when they had sworn (like him) to 
devote themselves to a new Crusade, for the love and honor 
of the Truth ! 

Sick at heart, wearied out by the falsehood of his sons, 
and almost read}' to lie down and die, the unhappy King who 
had so long stood firm, began to fail. But the Pope, to his 
honor, supported him ; and obliged the French King and 
Richard, though successful in fight, to treat for peace. Rich- 
ard wanted to be crowned King of England, and pretended 
that he wanted to be married (which he realty did not) to 
the French King's sister, his promised wife, whom King 
Henry detained in England. King Hemy wanted, on the 
other hand, that the French King's sister should be married 
to his favorite son, John : the only one of his sons (he said) 
who had never rebelled against him. At last King Henry, 
deserted by his nobles one by one, distressed, exhausted, 
broken-hearted, consented to establish peace. 

One final heavy sorrow was reserved for him, even } T et. 
When they brought him the proposed treaty of peace, in 
writing, as he lay very ill in bed, they brought him also the 
list of the deserters from their allegiance, whom he was re- 
quired to pardon. The first name upon this list was John, 
his favorite son, in whom he had trusted to the last. 

" O John ! child of my heart ! " exclaimed the King, in a 



108 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

great agony of mind. "O John, whom I have loved the 
best ! O John, for whom I have contended through these 
many troubles ! Have you betra3 T ed me too ! " And then 
he lay down with a heavy groan, and said, "Now let the 
world go as it will. I care for nothing more ! " 

After a time, he told his attendants to take him to the 
French town of Chinon — a town he had been fond of, during 
many 3 T ears. But he was fond of no place now ; it was too 
true that he could care for nothing more upon this earth. He 
wildly cursed the hour when he was born, and cursed the chil- 
dren whom he left behind him ; and expired. 

As, one hundred } 7 ears before, the servile followers of the 
Court had abandoned the Conqueror in the hour of his death, 
so they now abandoned his descendant. The ver} r body was 
stripped, in the plunder of the I^yyal chamber ; and it was 
not easy to find the means of carrying it for burial to the 
abbey church of Fontevraud. 

Richard was said in after years, by way of flattery, to have 
the heart of a Lion. It would have been far better, I think, 
to have had the heart of a Man. His heart, whatever it was, 
had cause to beat remorsefully within his breast, when he 
came — as he did — into the solemn abbey, and looked on his 
dead father's uncovered face. His heart, whatever it was, 
had been a black and perjured heart, in all its dealings with 
the deceased King, and more deficient in a single touch of 
tenderness than any wild beast's in the forest. 

There is a pretty story told of this Reign, called the story 
of Fair Rosamond. It relates how the King doted on Fair 
Rosamond, who was the loveliest girl in all the world ; and 
how he had a beautiful Bower built for her in a Park at 
Woodstock ; and how it was erected in a labyrinth, and could 
only be found by a clue of silk. How the bad Queen Eleanor, 
becoming jealous of Fair Rosamond, found out the secret of 
the clue, and one day, appeared before her, with a dagger 
and a cup of poison, and left her to the choice between those 
deaths. How Fair Rosamond, after shedding many piteous 



HENRY THE SECOND. 109 

tears and offering many useless pra} r ers to the cruel Queen, 
took the poison, and fell dead in the midst of the beau- 
tiful bower, while the unconscious birds sang gaily all around 
heV- 

Now, there was a fair Rosamond, and she was (I dare say) 
the loveliest girl in all the world, and the King was certainly 
very fond of her, and the bad Queen Eleanor was certainly 
made jealous. But I am afraid — I say afraid, because I like 
the story so much — that there was no bower, no labyrinth, no 
silken clue, no dagger, no poison. I am afraid fair Rosamond 
retired to a nunnery near Oxford, and died there, peaceably ; 
her sister-nuns hanging a silken drapery over her tomb, and 
often dressing it with flowers, in remembrance of the }'outh 
and beauty that had enchanted the King when he too was 
young, and when his life lay fair before him. 

It was dark and ended now ; faded and gone. Henry 
Plantagenet lay quiet in the abbey church of Fontevraud, in 
the fifty-seventh }^ear of his age — never to be completed — 
after governing England well, for nearly thirty-five years. 



110 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE FIRST, CALLED THE 
LION-HEART. 

In the year of our Lord one thousand one hundred and 
eighty-nine, Richard of the Lion Heart succeeded to the 
throne of King Henry the Second, whose paternal heart he 
had done so much to break. He had been, as we have seen, 
a rebel from his boyhood ; but, the moment he became a king 
against whom others might rebel, he found out that rebellion 
was a great wickedness. In the heat of this pious discovery, 
he punished all the leading people who had befriended him 
against his father. He could scarcely have done anything 
that would have been a better instance of his real nature, or a 
better warning to fawners and parasites not to trust in lion- 
hearted princes. 

He likewise put his late father's treasurer in chains, and 
locked him up in a dungeon from which he was not set free 
until he had relinquished, not only all the Crown treasure, but 
all his own money too. So, Richard certainty got the Lion's 
share of the wealth of this wretched treasurer, whether he had 
a Lion's heart or not. 

He was crowned King of England, with great pomp, at 
Westminster ; walking to the Cathedral under a silken canopy 
stretched on the tops of four lances, each carried b}' a great 
lord. On the day of his coronation, a dreadful murdering of 
the Jews took place, which seems to have given great delight 
to numbers of savage persons calling themselves Christians. 
The King had issued a proclamation forbidding the Jews 
(who were generally hated, though they were the most useful 



RICHARD THE FIRST. Ill 

merchants in England) to appear at the ceremony ; but as 
the}' had assembled in London from all parts, bringing pres- 
ents to show their respect for the new Sovereign, some of them 
ventured down to Westminster Hall with their gifts ; which 
were very readily accepted. It is supposed, now, that some 
noisy fellow in the crowd, pretending to be a very delicate 
Christian, set up a howl at this, and struck a Jew who was 
trying to get in at the Hall door with his present. A riot 
arose. The Jews who had got into the Hall, were driven 
forth ; and some of the rabble cried out that the new King had 
commanded the unbelieving race to be put to death. There- 
upon the crowd rushed through the narrow streets of the city, 
slaughtering all the Jews they met ; and when they could find 
no more out of doors (on account of their having fled to their 
houses, and fastened themselves in) , they ran madly about, 
breaking open all the houses where the Jews lived, rushing in 
and stabbing or spearing them, sometimes even flinging old 
people and children out of windows into blazing fires the}' had 
lighted up below. This great cruelty lasted four-and-twenty 
hours, and only three men were punished for it. Even they 
forfeited their lives not for murdering and robbing the Jews, 
but for burning the houses of some Christians. 

King Richard, who was a strong restless burly man, with 
one idea always in his head, and that the very troublesome 
idea of breaking the heads of other men, was mightily impa- 
tient to go on a Crusade to the Holy Land, with a great 
army. As great armies could not be raised to go even to 
the Holy Land, without a great deal of money, he sold the 
Crown domains and even the high offices of State ; reck- 
lessly appointing noblemen to rule over his English subjects, 
not because they were fit to govern, but because they could 
pay high for the privilege. In this way, and by selling par- 
dons at a dear rate, and by varieties of avarice and oppres- 
sion, he scraped together a large treasure. He then appointed 
two Bishops to take care of his kingdom in his absence, and 
gave great powers and possessions to his brother John, to 



112 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

secure his friendship. John would rather have been made 
Regent of England ; but he was a sly man, and friendly to 
the expedition; saying to himself, no doubt, "The more 
fighting, the more chance of my brother being killed ; and 
when he is killed, then I become King John ! " 

Before the newly levied army departed from England, the 
recruits and the general populace distinguished themselves by 
astonishing cruelties on the unfortunate Jews : whom in many 
large towns, they murdered by hundreds in the most horrible 
manner. 

At York, a large body of Jews took refuge in the Castle, in 
the absence of its Governor, after the wives and children of 
many of them had been slain before their ejxs. Presently 
came the Governor, and demanded admission. "How can 
we give it thee, O Governor ! " said the Jews upon the walls, 
" when, if we open the gate by so much as the width of a foot, 
the roaring crowd behind thee will press in and kill us ? " 

Upon this, the unjust Governor became angry, and told the 
people that he approved of their killing those Jews ; and a 
mischievous maniac of a friar, dressed all in white, put him- 
self at the head of the assault, aud they assaulted the Castle 
for three da} T s. 

Then said Jocen, the head-Jew (who was a Rabbi or Priest) , 
to the rest, "Brethren, there is no hope for us with the 
Christians who are hammering at the gates and walls, and 
who must soon break in. As we and our wives and chil- 
dren must die, either by Christian hands, or by our own, 
let it be b} T our own. Let us destixyy by fire what jewels and 
other treasure we have here, then fire the castle, and then 
perish ! " 

A few could not resolve to do this, but the greater part 
complied. They made a blazing heap of all their valuables, 
and when those were consumed, set the castle in flames. 
While the flames roared and crackled around them, and shoot- 
ing up into the sky, turned it blood-red, Jocen cut the throat 
of his beloA r ed wife, and stabbed himself. All the others who 




V || nili py r i ? , 



RICHARD THE FIRST. 113 

had wives or children did the like dreadful deed. When 
the populace broke in, the}' found (except the trembling few, 
cowering in corners, whom the} T soon killed) only heaps of 
greasy cinders, with here and there something like, part of the 
blackened trunk of a burnt tree, but which had lately been a 
human creature, formed by the beneficent hand of the Creator 
as they were. 

After this bad beginning, Richard and his troops went on, 
in no very good manner, with the Holy Crusade. It was 
undertaken jointly b} T the King of England and his old friend 
Philip of France. They commenced the business by review- 
ing their forces, to the number of one hundred thousand men. 
Afterwards, they severally embarked their troops for Messina, 
in Sicily, which was appointed as the next place of meeting. 

King Richard's sister had married the King of this place, 
but he was dead : and his uncle Tancred had usurped the 
crown, cast the Royal Widow into prison, and possessed 
himself of her estates. Richard fiercely demanded his sister's 
release, the restoration of her lands, and (according to the 
Royal custom of the Island) that she should have a golden 
chair, a golden table, four-and- twenty silver cups, and four- 
and-twenty silver dishes. As he was too powerful to be suc- 
cessfully resisted, Tancred yielded to his demands ; and then 
the French King grew jealous, and complained that the Eng- 
lish King wanted to be absolute in the Island of Messina and 
everywhere else. Richard, however, cared little or nothing 
for this complaint ; and in consideration of a present of 
twenty thousand pieces of gold, promised his pretty little 
nephew Arthur, then a child of two years old, in marriage 
to Tancred's daughter. We shall hear again of pretty little 
Arthur by-and-by. 

This Sicilian affair arranged without anybod}~'s brains be- 
ing knocked out (which must have rather disappointed him), 
King Richard took his sister awa}*, and also a fair lady named 
Berengaria, with whom he had fallen in love in France, and 
whom his mother, Queen Eleanor (so long in prison, }'ou re- 



114 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

member, but released b}* Richard on his coming to the Throne) , 
had brought out there to be his wife ; and sailed with them 
for Cyprus. 

He soon had the pleasure of fighting the King of the Island 
of Cyprus, for allowing his subjects to pillage some of the 
English troops who were shipwrecked on the shore ; and 
easily conquering this poor monarch, he seized his only 
daughter, to be a companion to the lady Berengaria, and put 
the King himself into silver fetters. He then sailed away 
again with his mother, sister, wife, and the captive princess ; 
and soon arrived before the town of Acre, which the French 
King with his fleet was besieging from the sea. But the 
French King was in no triumphant condition, for his army 
had been thinned b}^ the swords of the Saracens, and wasted 
b}' the plague ; and Saladin, the brave Sultan of the Turks, 
at the head of a numerous army, was at that time gallantly 
defending the place from the hills that rise above it. 

Wherever the united army of Crusaders went, they agreed 
in few points except in gaming, drinking, and quarrelling, in 
a most unholy manner ; in debauching the people among 
whom they tarried, whether the}' were friends or foes ; and 
in canying disturbance and ruin into quiet places. The 
French King was jealous of the English King, and the Eng- 
lish King was jealous of the French King, and the disorderly 
and violent soldiers of the two nations were jealous of one 
another ; consequently, the two kings could not at first agree, 
even upon a joint assault on Acre ; but when they did make 
up their quarrel for that purpose, the Saracens promised to 
yield the town, to give up to the Christians the wood of the 
Holy Cross, to set at libert}' all their Christian captives, and 
to pay two hundred thousand pieces of gold. All this was 
to be done within foily days ; but, not being done, King 
Richard ordered some three thousand Saracen prisoners to be 
brought out in the front of his camp, and there, in full view 
of their own countrymen, to be butchered. 

The French King had no part in this crime ; for he was by 



RICHARD THE FIRST. 115 

that time travelling homeward with the greater part of his 
men ; being offended by the overbearing conduct of the Eng- 
lish King ; being anxious to look after his own dominions ; 
andrbeing ill, besides, from the unwholesome air of that hot 
and sandy country. King Richard carried on the war with- 
out him ; and remained in the East, meeting with a variety 
of adventures, nearly a year and a half. Every night when 
his army was on the march, and came to a halt, the heralds 
cried out three times, to remind all the soldiers of the cause 
in which they were engaged, " Save the Holy Sepulchre ! " 
and then all the soldiers knelt and said " Amen ! " March- 
ing or encamping, the army had continually to strive with 
the Jiot air of the glaring desert, or with the Saracen soldiers 
animated and directed by the brave Saladin, or with both 
together. Sickness and death, battle and wounds, were 
always among them ; but through every difficulty King Rich- 
ard fought like a giant, and worked like a common laborer. 
Long and long after he was quiet in his grave, his terrible 
battle-axe, with twenty English pounds of English steel in 
its might} T head, was a legend among the Saracens ; and 
when all the Saracen and Christian hosts had been dust 
for many a }ear, if a Saracen horse started at any object 
by the wa3 T side, his rider would exclaim, "What dost 
thou fear, Fool? Dost thou think King Richard is be- 
hind it?" 

No one admired this King's renown for bravery more than 
Saladin himself, who was a generous and gallant enemy. 
When Richard lay ill of a fever, Saladin sent him fresh fruits 
from Damascus, and snow from the mountain- tops. Courtly 
messages and compliments were frequently exchanged be- 
tween them — and then King Richard would mount his 
horse and kill as many Saracens as he could ; and Saladin 
would mount his, and kill as many Christians as he could. 
In this way King Richard fought to his heart's content at 
Arsoof and at Jaffa ; and finding himself with nothing excit- 
ing to do at Ascalon, except to rebuild, for his own defence, 



116 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

some fortifications there which the Saracens had destroyed, 
he kicked his ally the Duke of Austria, for being too proud 
to work at them. 

The army at last came within sight of the Holy City of 
Jerusalem ; but, being then a mere nest of jealous}^, and 
quarrelling and fighting, soon retired, and agreed with the 
Saracens upon a truce for three years, three months, three 
days, and three hours. Then the English Christians, pro- 
tected b} T the noble Saladin from Saracen revenge, visited 
Our Saviour's tomb ; and then King Richard embarked with 
a small force at Acre to return home. 

But he was shipwrecked in the Adriatic Sea, and was fain 
to pass through Germany, under an assumed name. Now, 
there were many people in Germany who had served in the 
Holy Land under that proud Duke of Austria who had been 
kicked ; and some of them, easily recognizing a man so 
remarkable as King Richard, carried their intelligence to the 
kicked Duke, who straightway took him prisoner at a little 
inn near Vienna. 

The Duke's master the Emperor of Germany, and the 
King of France, were equally delighted to have so trouble- 
some a monarch in safe keeping. Friendships which are 
founded on a partnership in doing wrong, are never true ; 
and the King of France was now quite as heartily King 
Richard's foe, as he had ever been his friend in his unnatural 
conduct to his father. He monstrously pretended that King 
Richard had designed to poison him in the East ; he charged 
him with having murdered, there, a man whom he had in 
truth befriended ; he bribed the Emperor of Germany to 
keep him close prisoner ; and, finally, through the plotting 
of these two princes, Richard was brought before the Ger- 
man legislature, charged with the foregoing crimes, and 
many others. But he defended himself so well, that many 
of the assembly were moved to tears by his eloquence and 
earnestness. It was decided that he should be treated, dur- 
ing the rest of his captivity, in a manner more becoming his 



RICHARD THE FIRST. 117 

dignity than he had been, and that he should be set free on 
the payment of a heavy ransom. This ransom the English 
people willingly raised. When Queen Eleanor took it over 
to -German}-, it was at first evaded and refused; But she 
appealed to the honor of all the princes of the German Em- 
pire in behalf of her son, and appealed so well that it was 
accepted, and the King released. Thereupon, the King of 
France wrote to JPrince John, — "Take care of thyself. 
The devil is unchained ! " 

Prince John had reason to fear his brother, for he had 
been a traitor to him in his captivity. He had secretly 
joined the French King ; had vowed to the English nobles 
and people that his brother was dead ; and had vainly tried 
to seize the crown. He was now in France, at a place called 
Evreux. Being the meanest and basest of men, he contrived 
a mean and base expedient for making himself acceptable 
to his brother. He invited the French officers of the garri- 
son in that town to dinner, murdered them all, and then 
took the fortress. With this recommendation to the good 
will of a lion-hearted monarch, he hastened to King Richard, 
fell on his knees before him, and obtained the intercession of 
Queen Eleanor. "I forgive him," said the King, "and I 
hope I may forget the injury he has done me, as easily as I 
know he will forget my pardon." 

While King Richard was in Sicily, there had been trouble 
in his dominions at home : one of the bishops whom he had 
left in charge thereof, arresting the other; and making, in 
his pride and ambition, as great a show as if he were King 
himself. But the King hearing of it at Messina, and ap- 
pointing a new Regency, this Longchamp (for that was his 
name) had fled to France in a woman's dress, and had there 
been encouraged and supported by the French King. With 
all these causes of offence against Philip in his mind, King 
Richard had no sooner been welcomed home by his enthusi- 
astic subjects with great display and splendor, and had no 
sooner been crowned afresh at Winchester, than he resolved 



118 A CHILD'S HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. 

to show the French King that the Devil was unchained in- 
deed, and made war against him with great fury. 

There was fresh trouble at home about this time, arising 
out of the discontents of the poor people, who complained 
that they were far more heavily taxed than the rich, and 
who found a spirited champion in William Fitz-Osbert 
called Longbeard. He became the leader of a secret societ} 7 , 
comprising fift}' thousand men ; he was seized by surprise ; 
he stabbed the citizen who first laid hands upon him ; and 
retreated, bravely fighting, to a church, which he maintained 
four days, until he was dislodged by fire and run through 
the bocty as he came out. He was not killed though ; for he 
was dragged, half dead, at the tail of a horse to Smithfield, 
and there hanged. Death was long a favorite remedy for 
silencing the people's advocates ; but as we go on with this 
history, I fancy we shall find them difficult to make an end 
of, for all that. 

The French war, delaj^ed occasionally by a truce, was still 
in progress when a certain Lord named Vidomar, Viscount 
of Limoges, chanced to find in his ground a treasure of an- 
cient coins. As the King's vassal, he sent the King half of 
it ; but the King claimed the whole. The lord refused to 
yield the whole. The King besieged the lord in his castle, 
swore that he would take the castle by storm, and hang every 
man of its defenders on the battlements. 

There was a strange old song in that part of the country, 
to the effect that in Limoges an arrow would be made by 
which King Richard would die. It may be that Bertrand 
de Gourdon, a young man who was one of the defenders of 
the castle, had often sung it or heard it sung of a winter 
night, and remembered it when he saw, from his post upon 
the ramparts, the King attended only by his chief officer 
riding below the walls surveying the place. He drew an 
arrow to the head, took steady aim, said between his teeth, 
"Now I pray God speed thee well, arrow!" discharged it, 
and struck the King in the left shoulder. 



RICHARD THE FIRST. 119 

Although the wound was not at first considered dangerous, 
it was severe enough to cause the King to retire to his tent, 
and direct the assault to be made without him. The castle 
Was taken ; and eveiy man of its defenders was hanged, 
as the King had sworn all should be, except Bertrand de 
Gourdon, who was reserved until the royal pleasure respect- 
ing him should be known. 

By that time unskilful treatment had made the wound mor- 
tal, and the King knew that he was clying. He directed Ber- 
trand to be brought into his tent. The young man was 
brought there heavily chained. King Richard looked at him 
steadily. He looked, as steadily, at the King. 

V Knave ! " said King Richard. "What have I done to 
thee that thou shouldst take my life ? " 

"What hast thou done to me! " replied the young man. 
" With thine own hands thou hast killed my father and my 
two brothers. Myself thou wouldest have hanged. Let me 
die now, b}^ any torture that thou wilt. JVTv comfort is, that 
no torture can save Thee. Thou too must die ; and, through 
me, the world is quit of thee ! " 

Again the King looked at the 3 7 oung man steadily. Again 
the } T oung man looked steadily at him. Perhaps some re- 
membrance of his generous enenry, Saladin, who was not a 
Christian, came into the mind of the d}dng King. 

" Youth ! " he said, " I forgive thee. Go unhurt ! " 

Then, turning to the chief officer who had been riding in 
his company when he received the wound, King Richard 
said : 

" Take off his chains, give him a hundred shillings, and 
let him depart." 

He sunk down on his" couch, and a dark mist seemed in 
his weakened eyes to fill the tent wherein he had so often 
rested, and he died. His age was fort}-two ; he had reigned 
ten years. His last command was not obej^ed ; for the chief 
officer flayed Bertrand de Gourdon alive, and hanged him. 

There is an old tune yet known — a sorrowful air will some- 



120 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

times outlive many generations of strong men, and even last 
longer than battle-axes, with twent}^ pounds of steel in the 
head — by which this King is said to have been discovered in 
his captivity. Blondel, a favorite Minstrel of King Richard, 
as the story relates, faithfully seeking his Royal master, went 
singing it outside the gloomy walls of many foreign fortresses 
and prisons ; until at last he heard it echoed from within a 
dungeon, and knew the voice, and cried out in ecstas}', " O 
Richard, O my King ! " You may believe it, if you like ; it 
would be easy to believe worse things. Richard was himself 
a Minstrel and a Poet. If he had not been a Prince too, he 
might have been a better man perhaps, and might have gone 
out of the world with less bloodshed and waste of life to 
answer for. 



KING JOHN. 121 



CHAPTER XIV. 

ENGLAND UNDER KING JOHN, CALLED LACKLAND. 

At two-and-thirtj- j^ears of age, John became King of 
England. His pretty little nephew Arthur had the best 
claim to the throne ; but John seized the treasure, and made 
fine'promises to the nobility, and got himself crowned at West- 
minster within a few weeks after his brother Richard's death. 
I doubt whether the crown could possibly have been put upon 
the head of a meaner coward, or a more detestable villain, if 
England had been searched from end to end to find him out. 

The French King, Philip, refused to acknowledge the right 
of John to his new dignity, and declared in favor of Arthur. 
You must not suppose that he had any generosity of feeling 
for the fatherless boy ; it merely suited his ambitious schemes 
to oppose the King of England. So John and the French 
King went to war about Arthur. 

He was a handsome boy, at that time only twelve years 
old. He was not born when his father, Geoffrey, had his 
brains trampled out at the tournament ; and, besides the mis- 
fortune of never having known a father's guidance and protec- 
tion, he had the additional misfortune to have a foolish mother 
(Constance by name) , lately married to her third husband. 
She took Arthur, upon John's accession, to the French King, 
who pretended to be very much his friend, and who made 
him a Knight, and promised him his daughter in marriage ; 
but, who cared so little about him in reality, that finding it 
his interest to make peace with King John for a time, he did 
so without the least consideration for the poor little Prince, 
and heartlessly sacrificed all his interests. 



122 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Young Arthur, for two years afterwards, lived quietly ; and 
in the course of that time his mother died. But, the French 
King then finding it his interest to quarrel with King John 
again, again made Arthur his pretence, and invited the orphan 
boy to court. "You know your rights, Prince," said the 
French King, u and you would like to be a King. Is it not 
so? " " Truly," said Prince Arthur, " I should greatly like to 
be a King!" "Then," said Philip, "you shall have two 
hundred gentlemen who are Knights of mine, and with them 
3^011 shall go to win back the provinces belonging to you, of 
which your uncle, the usurping King of England, has taken 
possession. I myself, meanwhile, will head a force against 
him in Normandy." Poor Arthur was so flattered and so 
grateful that he signed a treaty with the crafty French King, 
agreeing to consider him his superior Lord, and that the 
French King should keep for himself whatever he could take 
from King John. 

Now King John was so bad in all ways, and King Philip was 
so perfidious, that Arthur, between the two, might as well 
have been a lamb between a fox and a wolf. But, being so 
young, he was ardent and flushed with hope ; and, when the 
people of Brittanj^ (which was his inheritance) sent him five 
hundred more knights and five thousand foot soldiers, he be- 
lieved his fortune was made. The people of Brittany had 
been fond of him from his birth, and had requested that he 
might be called Arthur, in remembrance of that dimly-famous 
English Arthur, of whom I told you early in this book, whom 
they believed to have been the brave friend and companion 
of an old King of their own. They had tales among them 
about a prophet called Merlin (of the same old time), who 
had foretold that their own King should be restored to them 
after hundreds of 3 T ears ; and they believed that the prophecy 
would be fulfilled in Arthur ; that the time would come when 
he would rule them with a crown of Brittany upon his head ; 
and when neither King of France nor King of England would 
have airy power over them. When Arthur found himself 



KING JOHN. 123 

riding in a glittering suit of armor on a richly caparisoned 
horse, at the head of his train of knights and soldiers, he 
began to believe this too, and to consider old Merlin a very 
superior prophet. 

He did not know — how could he, being so innocent and 
inexperienced? — that his little army was a mere nothing 
against the power of the King of England. The French King 
knew it ; but the poor bo}^s fate was little to him, so that the 
King of England was worried and distressed. Therefore, 
King Philip went his way into Normandy, and Prince Arthur 
went his way towards Mirebeau, a French town near Poic- 
tiers, both very well pleased. 

Prince Arthur went to attack the town of Mirebeau, be- 
cause his grandmother Eleanor, who has so often made her 
appearance in this history (and who had always been his 
mother's enemy) , was living there, and because his Knights 
said, " Prince, if you can take her prisoner, you will be able 
to bring the King your uncle to terms ! " But she was not 
to be easily taken. She was old enough b}^ this time — eighty 
— but she was as full of stratagem as she was full of years 
and wickedness. Receiving intelligence of young Arthur's 
approach, she shut herself up in a high tower, and encouraged 
her soldiers to defend it like men. Prince Arthur with his 
little army besieged the high tower. King John, hearing 
how matters stood, came up to the rescue, with his army. 
So here was a strange family-party ! The bo} T -Prince be- 
sieging his grandmother, and his uncle besieging him ! 

This position of affairs did not last long. One summer 
night King John, by treachery, got his men into the town, sur- 
prised Prince Arthur's force, took two hundred of his knights, 
and seized the Prince himself in his bed. The Knights were 
put in heavy irons, and driven awa}^ in open carts drawn 
b}' bullocks, to various dungeons where they were most 
inhumanly treated, and where some of them were starved to 
death. Prince Arthur was sent to the castle of Falaise. 

One day, while he was in prison at that castle, mournfully 



124 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

thinking it strange that one so young should be in so much 
trouble, and looking out of the small window in the deep dark 
wall, at the summer sky and the birds, the door was softly 
opened, and he saw his uncle the King standing in the 
shadow of the archway, looking very grim. 

"Arthur," said the King, with his wicked eyes more on 
the stone floor than on his nephew, " will you not trust to the 
gentleness, the friendship, and the truthfulness of your loving 
uncle ?" 

" I will tell my loving uncle that," replied the boy, " when 
he does me right. Let him restore to me my kingdom of 
England, and then come to me and ask the question." 

The King looked at him and went out. "Keep that boy 
close prisoner," said he to the warden of the castle. 

Then, the King took secret counsel with the worst of his 
nobles how the Prince was to be got rid of. Some said, " Put 
out his eyes and keep him in prison, as Robert of Normandy 
was kept." Others said, " Have him stabbed." Others, 
" Have him hanged." Others, " Have him poisoned." 

King John, feeling that in any case, whatever was done 
afterwards, it would be a satisfaction to his mind to have 
those handsome eyes burnt out that had looked at him so 
proudly while his own yojsl\ eyes were blinking at the stone 
floor, sent certain ruffians to Falaise to blind the boy with 
red-hot irons. But Arthur so pathetically entreated them, 
and shed such piteous tears, and so appealed to Hubert de 
Bourg (or Burgh), the warden of the castle, who had a love 
for him, and was an honorable tender man, that Hubert could 
not bear it. To his eternal honor he prevented the torture 
from being performed, and, at his own risk, sent the savages 
away. 

The chafed and disappointed King bethought himself of 
the stabbing suggestion next, and with his shuffling manner 
and his cruel face, proposed it to one William de Bray. " I 
am a gentleman and not an executioner," said William de 
Bray, and left the presence with disdain. 



KING JOHN. 125 

But it was not difficult for a King to hire a murderer in 
those da}'S. King John found one for his money, and sent 
him down to the castle of Falaise. " On what errand dost 
thou come?" said Hubert to this fellow. " To despatch 
young Arthur," he returned. "Go back to him who sent 
thee," answered Hubert, " and say that I will do it ! " 

King John very well knowing that Hubert would never do 
it, but that he courageously sent this reply to save the Prince 
or gain time, despatched messengers to convey the young 
prisoner to the castle of Rouen. 

Arthur was soon forced from the good Hubert — of whom 
he had never stood in greater need than then — carried away 
by night, and lodged in his new prison: where, through his 
grated window, he could hear the deep waters of the river 
Seine, rippling against the stone wall below. 

One dark night, as he lay sleeping, dreaming perhaps of 
rescue by those unfortunate gentlemen who were obscurely 
suffering and dying in his cause, he was roused, and bidden 
by his jailer to come down the staircase to the foot of the 
tower. He hurriedly dressed himself and obej'ed. When 
they came to the bottom of the winding stairs, and the night 
air from the river blew upon their faces, the jailer trod upon 
his torch and put it out. Then Arthur, in the darkness, was 
hurriedly drawn into a solitary boat. And in that boat, he 
found his uncle and one other man. 

He knelt to them, and prayed them not to murder him. 
Deaf to his entreaties, they stabbed him and sunk his body 
in the river with heavy stones. When the spring morning 
broke, the tower- door was closed, the boat was gone, the 
river sparkled on its wa}', and never more was any trace of 
the poor boy beheld by mortal eyes. 

The news of this atrocious murder being spread in England, 
awakened a hatred of the King (already odious for his many 
vices, and for his having stolen away and married a noble 
lady while his own wife was living) that never slept again 
through his whole reign. In Brittany, the indignation was 



126 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

intense. Arthur's own sister Eleanor was in the power of 
John and shut up in a convent at Bristol, but his half-sister 
Alice was in Brittany. The people chose her, and the mur- 
dered prince's father-in-law, the last husband of Constance, 
to represent them ; and carried their fiery complaints to King 
Philip. King Philip summoned King John (as the holder of 
territory in France) to come before him and defend himself. 
King John refusing to appear, King Philip declared him false, 
perjured, and guilty ; and again made war. In a little time, by 
conquering the greater part of his French territory, King 
Philip deprived him of one-third of his dominions. And, 
through all the fighting that took place, King John was 
always found, either to be eating and drinking, like a glut- 
tonous fool, when the danger was at a distance, or to be run- 
ning away, like a beaten cur, when it was near. 

You might suppose that when he was losing his dominions 
at this rate, and when his own nobles cared so little for him 
or his cause that they plainly refused to follow his banner out 
of England, he had enemies enough. But he made another 
enemy of the Pope, which he did in this way. 

The Archbishop of Canterbury dying, and the junior monks 
of that place wishing to get the start of the senior monks in 
the appointment of his successor, met together at midnight, 
secretly elected a certain Reginald, and sent him off to Rome 
to get the Pope's approval. The senior monks and the King 
soon finding this out, and being very angry about it, the jun- 
ior monks gave way, and: all the monks together elected the 
Bishop of Norwich, who was the King's favorite. The Pope, 
hearing the whole story, declared that neither election would 
do for him, and that he elected Stephen Langton. The 
monks submitting to the Pope, the King turned them all out 
bodily, and banished them as traitors. The Pope sent three 
bishops to the King, to threaten him with an Interdict. The 
King told the Bishops that if any Interdict were laid upon his 
kingdom, he would tear out the eyes and cut off the noses of 
all the monks he could lay hold of, and send them over to 



KING JOHN. 127 

Rome in that undecorated state as a present for their master. 
The bishops, nevertheless, soon published the Interdict, and 
fled. 

"^After it had lasted a 3 T ear, the Pope proceeded to his next 
step ; which was Excommunication. King John was declared 
excommunicated, with all the usual ceremonies. The King 
was so incensed at this, and was made so desperate by the 
disaffection of his Barons and the hatred of his people,- that 
it is said he even privately sent ambassadors to the Turks in 
Spain, offering to renounce his religion and hold his kingdom 
of them if they would help him. It is related that the am- 
bassadors were admitted to the presence of the Turkish Emir 
through long lines of Moorish guards, and that they found 
the Emir with his eyes seriously fixed on the pages of a large 
book, from which he never once looked up. That they gave 
him a letter from the King containing his proposals, and were 
gravely dismissed. That presently the Emir sent for one of 
them, and conjured him, by his faith in his religion, to say 
what kind of man the King of England truly was ? That the 
ambassador, thus pressed, replied that the King of England 
was a false tyrant, against whom his own subjects would 
soon rise. And that this was quite enough for the Emir. 

Money being, in his position, the next best thing to men, 
King John spared no means of getting it. He set on foot 
another oppressing and torturing of the unhappy Jews (which 
was quite in his way) , and invented a new punishment for 
one wealthy Jew of Bristol. Until such time as that Jew 
should produce a certain large sum of money, the King sen- 
tenced him to be imprisoned, and, every day, to have one 
tooth violently wrenched out of his head — beginning with 
the double teeth. For seven days, the oppressed man bore 
the daily pain and lost the daily tooth ; but, on the eighth, he 
paid the money. With the treasure raised in such ways, the 
King made an expedition into Ireland, where some English 
nobles had revolted. It was one of the very few places from 
which he did not run away ; because no resistance was shown. 



128 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

He made another expedition into Wales — whence he did run 
away in the end : but not before he had got from the Welsh 
people, as hostages, twenty-seven young men of the best 
families ; every one of whom he caused to be slain in the fol- 
lowing year. 

To Interdict and Excommunication, the Pope now added 
his last sentence ; Deposition. He proclaimed John no 
longer King, absolved all his subjects from their allegiance, 
and sent Stephen Langton and others to the King of France 
to tell him that, if he would invade England, he should be 
forgiven all his sins — at, least, should be forgiven them by 
the Pope, if that would do. 

As there was nothing that King Philip desired more than 
to invade England, he collected a great army at Rouen, and 
a fleet of seventeen hundred ships to bring them over. But 
the English people, however bitterly they hated the King, 
were not a people to suffer invasion quietly. They flocked to 
Dover, where the English standard was, in such great num- 
bers to enrol themselves as defenders of their native land, 
that there were not provisions for them, and the King could 
only select and retain sixty thousand. But, at this crisis, the 
Pope, who had his own reasons for objecting to either King 
John or King Philip being too powerful, interfered. He en- 
trusted a legate, whose name was Pandolf, with the easy 
task of frightening King John. He sent him to the English 
Camp, from France, to terrify him with exaggerations of King 
Philip's power, and his own weakness in the discontent of the 
English Barons and people. Pandolf discharged his commis- 
sion so well, that King John, in a wretched panic, consented 
to acknowledge Stephen Langton ; to resign his kingdom ' ' to 
God, St. Peter, and St. Paul," — which meant the Pope ; 
and to hold it, ever afterwards, by the Pope's leave, on pay- 
ment of an annual sum of money. To this shameful contract 
he publicly bound himself in the church of the Knights Tem- 
plars at Dover : where he laid at the legate's feet a part of 
the tribute, which the legate haughtity trampled upon. But 



KING JOHN. 129 

they do say, that this was merely a genteel flourish, and that 
he was afterwards seen to pick it up and pocket it. 

There was an unfortunate prophet of the name of Peter, 
who had greatly increased King John's terrors by predicting 
that he would be unknighted (which the King supposed to 
signify that he would die) before the Feast of the Ascension 
should be past. That was the day after this humiliation. 
When the next morning came, and the King, who had been 
trembling all night, found himself alive and safe, he ordered 
the prophet — and his son too — to be dragged through the 
streets at the tails of horses, and then hanged, for having 
frightened him. 

As King John had now submitted, the Pope, to King Phil- 
ip's great astonishment, took him under his protection, and 
informed King Philip that he found he could not give him 
leave to invade England. The angry Philip resolved to do it 
without his leave ; but he gained nothing and lost much ; for, 
the English, commanded by the Earl of Salisbuiy, went over, 
in five hundred ships, to the French coast, before the French 
fleet had sailed awa} 7 from it, and utterly defeated the whole. 

The Pope then took off his three sentences, one after 
another, and empowered Stephen Langton publicly to receive 
King John into the favor of the Church again, and to ask him 
to dinner. The King, who hated Langton with all his might 
and main — and with reason too, for he was a great and a 
good man, with whom such a King could have no sympathy 
— pretended to cry and to be very grateful. There was a 
little difficulty about settling how much the King should pay 
as a recompense to the clergy for the losses he had caused 
them ; but, the end of it was, that the superior clergj- got a 
good deal, and the inferior clergy got little or nothing — 
which has also happened since King John's time, I believe. 

When all these matters were arranged, the King in his 
triumph became more fierce, and false, and insolent to all 
around him than he had ever been. An alliance of sover- 
eigns against King Philip, gave him an opportunity of laud- 

9 



130 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

ing an army in France ; with which he even took a town ! 
But, on the French King's gaining a great victory, he ran 
away, of course, and made a truce for five years. 

And now the time approached when he was to be still fur- 
ther humbled, and made to feel, if he could feel anything, 
what a wretched creature he was. Of all men in the world, 
Stephen Langton seemed raised up bj T Heaven to oppose and 
subdue him. When he ruthlessly burnt and destroyed the 
property of his own subjects, because their Lords, the 
Barons, would not serve him abroad, Stephen Langton fear- 
less^ reproved and threatened him. When he swore to 
restore the laws of King Edward, or the laws of King Henry 
the First, Stephen Langton knew his falsehood, and pursued 
him through all his evasions. When the Barons met at the 
abbey of Saint Edmund's-Bury, to consider their wrongs and 
the King's oppressions, Stephen Langton roused them by 
his fervid words to demand a solemn charter of rights and 
liberties from their perjured master, and to swear, one by one 
on the High Altar, that they would have it, or would wage 
war against him to the death. When the King hid himself 
in London from the Barons, and was at last obliged to receive 
them, they told him roundly they would not believe him 
unless Stephen Langton became a surety that he would keep 
his word. When he took the Cross to invest himself with 
some interest, and belong to something that was received 
with favor, Stephen Langton was still immovable. When he 
appealed to the Pope, and the Pope wrote to Stephen Lang- 
ton in behalf of his new favorite, Stephen Langton was deaf, 
even to the Pope himself, and saw before him nothing but 
the welfare of England and the crimes of the English King. 

At Easter- time, the Barons assembled at Stamford, in 
Lincolnshire, in proud array, and, marching near to Oxford 
where the King was, delivered into the hands of Stephen 
Langton and two others, a list of grievances. " And these," 
they said, " he must redress, or we will do it for ourselves ! " 
When Stephen Langton told the King as much, and read the 



KING JOHN. 131 

list to him, he went half mad with rage. But that did him 
no more good than his afterwards trying to pacifj- the Barons 
with lies. They called themselves and their followers, " The 
army of God and the Holy Church." Marching through 
the country, with the people thronging to them everywhere 
(except at Northampton, where they failed in an attack upon 
the castle), they at last triumphantly set up their banner in 
London itself, whither the whole land, tired of the tyrant, 
seemed to flock to join them. Seven knights alone, of all 
the knights in England, remained with the King ; who, re- 
duced to this strait, at last sent the Earl of Pembroke to the 
Barons to say that he approved of everything, and would 
meefr them to sign their charter when they would. " Then," 
said the Barons, " let the clay be the fifteenth of June, and 
the place Runny-Mead." 

On Monday, the fifteenth of June, one thousand two hun- 
dred and fourteen, the King came from Windsor Castle, and 
the Barons came from the town of Staines, and they met 
on Runny-Mead, which is still a pleasant meadow b}^ the 
Thames, where rushes grow in the clear water of the winding 
river, and its banks are green with grass and trees. On the 
side of the Barons, came the General of their army, Robert 
Fitz-W alter, and a great concourse of the nobility of Eng- 
land. With the King, came, in all, some four-and-twenty 
persons of any note, most of whom despised him, and were 
merely his advisers in form. On that great day, and in that 
great company, the King signed Magna Charta — the great 
charter of England — by which he pledged himself to main- 
tain the Church in its rights ; to relieve the Barons of oppres- 
sive obligations as vassals of the Crown — of which the 
Barons, in their turn, pledged themselves to relieve their 
vassals, the people ; to respect the liberties of London and 
all other cities and boroughs ; to protect foreign merchants 
who came to England ; to imprison no man without a fair 
trial; and to sell, delaj', or deny justice to none. As the 
Barons knew his falsehood well, they further required, as 



132 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

their securities, that he should send out of his kingdom all his 
foreign troops ; that for two months they should hold posses- 
sion of the City of London, and Stephen Langton of the 
Tower ; and that five-and- twenty of their bod}\ chosen by 
themselves, should be a lawful committee to watch the keep- 
ing of the charter, and to make war upon him if he broke it. 

All this he was obliged to yield. He signed the charter 
with a smile, and, if he could have looked agreeable, would 
have done so, as he departed from the splendid assembly. 
When he got home to Windsor Castle, he was quite a mad- 
man in his helpless fury. And he broke the charter immedi- 
ately afterwards. 

He sent abroad for foreign soldiers, and sent to the Pope 
for help, and plotted to take London b} 7 surprise, while the 
Barons should be holding a great tournament at Stamford, 
which they had agreed to hold there as a celebration of the 
charter. The Barons, however, found him out and put it off. 
Then, when the Barons desired to see him and tax him with 
his treachery, he made numbers of appointments with them, 
and kept none, and shifted from place to place, and was con- 
stantly sneaking and skulking about. At last he appeared 
at Dover, to join his foreign soldiers, of whom numbers came 
into his pay ; and with them he besieged and took Rochester 
Castle, which was occupied by knights and soldiers of the 
Barons. He would have hanged them every one ; but the 
leader of the foreign soldiers, fearful of what the English 
people might afterwards do to him, interfered to save the 
knights ; therefore the King was fain to satisf} 7 his vengeance 
with the death of all the common men. Then, he sent the 
Earl of Salisbury, with one portion of his- army, to ravage the 
eastern part of his own dominions, while he carried fire and. 
slaughter into the northern part ; torturing, plundering, kill- 
ing, and inflicting every possible cruelty upon the people ; 
and, every morning, setting a worthy example to his men by 
setting fire, with his own monster-hands, to the house where 
he had slept last night. Nor was this all; for the Pope, 



KING JOHN. 133 

coming to the aid of his precious friend, laid the kingdom 
under an Interdict again, because the people took part with 
the Barons. It did not much matter, for the people had 
grown so used to it now, that they had begun to think noth- 
ing about it. It occurred to them — perhaps to Stephen 
Langton too — that they could keep their churches open, and 
ring their bells, without the Pope's permission as well as 
with it. So, they tried the experiment — and found that it 
succeeded perfectly. 

It being now impossible to bear the country, as a wilder- 
ness of cruelty, or longer to hold any terms with such a 
forsworn outlaw of a King, the Barons sent to Louis, son of 
the French monarch, to offer him the English crown. Caring 
as little for the Pope's excommunication of him if he accepted 
the offer, as it is possible his father may have cared for the 
Pope's forgiveness of his sins, he landed at Sandwich (King 
John immediately running away from Dover, where he hap- 
pened to be), and went on to London. The Scottish King, 
with whom many of the Northern English Lords had taken 
refuge ; numbers of the foreign soldiers, numbers of the 
Barons, and numbers of the people went over to him every 
day ; — King John, the while, continually running away in all 
directions. The career of Louis was checked, however, by 
the suspicions of the Barons, founded on the djdng declara- 
tion of a French Lord, that when the kingdom was conquered 
he was sworn to banish them as traitors, and to give their 
estates to some of his own Nobles. Rather than suffer this, 
some of the Barons hesitated : others even went over to King 
John. 

It seemed to be the turning-point of King John's fortunes, 
for, in his savage and murderous course, he had now taken 
some towns and met with some successes. But, happily for 
England and humanhvy, his death was near. Crossing a 
dangerous quicksand, called the Wash, not very far from 
Wisbeach, the tide came up and nearly drowned his army. 
He and his soldiers escaped ; but, looking back from the 



134 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

shore when he was safe, he saw the roaring water sweep 
down in a torrent, overturn the wagons, horses, and men, 
that carried his treasure, and engulf them in a raging whirl- 
pool from which nothing could be delivered. 

Cursing, and swearing, and gnawing his fingers, he went 
on to Swinestead Abbe}^ where the monks set before him 
quantities of pears, and peaches, and new cider — some say 
poison too, but there is very little reason to suppose so — of 
which he ate and drank in an immoderate and beastly way. 
All night he lay ill of a burning fever, and haunted with 
horrible fears. Next day, they put him in a horse-litter, and 
carried him to Sleaford Castle, where he passed another 
night of pain and horror. Next day, they carried him, with 
greater difficulty than on the day before, to the Castle of 
Newark upon Trent ; and there, on the 18th of October, in 
the fort}' -ninth year of his age, and the seventeenth of his 
vile reign, was an end of this miserable brute. 



HENRY THE THIRD. 135 



CHAPTER XV. 

ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE THIRD, CALLED, OF 
WINCHESTER. 

If any of the English Barons remembered the murdered 
Arthur's sister, Eleanor the fair maid of Brittanj 7 , shut up in 
her convent at Bristol, none among them spoke of her now, 
or maintained her right to the Crown. The dead Usurper's 
eldest boy, Henry b}^ name, was taken by the Earl of Pem- 
broke, the Marshal of England, to the cit} r of Gloucester, and 
there crowned in great haste when he was only ten years old. 
As the Crown itself had been lost with the King's treasure, 
in the raging water, and, as there was no time to make 
another, they put a circle of plain gold Upon his head instead. 
"We have been the enemies of this child's father," said 
Lord Pembroke, a good and true gentleman, to the few 
Lords who were present, "and he merited our ill-will; but 
the child himself is innocent, and his youth demands our 
friendship and protection." Those Lords felt tenderly 
towards the little boy, remembering their own young chil- 
dren ; and they bowed their heads, and said, " Long live King 
Henry the Third ! " 

Next, a great council met at Bristol, revised Magna Charta, 
and made Lord Pembroke Regent or Protector of England, 
as the King was too young to reign alone. The next thing 
to be done was to get rid of Prince Louis of France, and to 
win over those English Barons who were still ranged under 
his banner. He was strong in many parts of England, and 
in London itself; and he held, among other places, a certain 
Castle called the Castle of Mount Sorel, in Leicestershire. 



136 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

To this fortress, after some skirmishing and truce-making, 
Lord Pembroke laid siege. Louis despatched an army of six 
hundred knights and twenty thousand soldiers to relieve it. 
Lord Pembroke, who was not strong enough for such a force, 
retired with all his men. The army of the French Prince, 
which had marched there with fire and plunder, marched 
away with fire and plunder, and came, in a boastful, swag- 
gering manner, to Lincoln. The town submitted ; but the 
Castle in the town, held by a brave widow lad}', named 
Nichola de Camville (whose property it was) , made siich 
a sturdy resistance, that the French Count in command of the 
army of the French Prince found it necessary to besiege this 
Castle. While he was thus engaged, word was brought to 
him that Lord Pembroke, with four hundred knights, two 
hundred and fifty men with cross-bows, and a stout force both 
of horse and foot, was marching towards him. " What care 
I?" said the French Count. "The Englishman is not so 
mad as to attack me and my great army in a walled town ! " 
But the Englishman did it for all that, and did it — not so 
madly but so wisely, that he decoyed the great army into the 
narrow, ill-paved lanes and byways of Lincoln, where its 
horse-soldiers could not ride in any strong body ; and there 
he made such havoc with them, that the whole force surren- 
dered themselves prisoners, except the Count ; who said that 
he would never yield to any English traitor alive, and accord- 
ingly got killed. The end of this victory, which the English 
called, for a joke, the Fair of Lincoln, was the usual one in 
those times — the common men were slain without any merc3 r , 
and the knights and gentlemen paid ransom and went home. 
The wife of Louis, the fair Blanche of Castile, dutifully 
equipped a fleet of eighty good ships, and sent it over from 
France to her husband's aid. An English fleet of forty ships, 
some good and some bad, gallantly met them near the mouth 
of the Thames, and took or sunk sixty-five in one fight. This 
great loss put an end to the French Prince's hopes. A treaty 
was made at Lambeth, in virtue of which the English Barons 



HENRY THE THIRD. 137 

who had remained attached to his cause returned to their 
allegiance, and it was engaged on both sides that the Prince 
and all his troops should retire peacefully to France. It was 
time to go ; for war had made him so poor that he was obliged 
to borrow monej^ from the citizens of London to pay his ex- 
penses home. 

Lord Pembroke afterwards applied himself to governing the 
country justly, and to healing the quarrels and disturbances 
that had arisen among men in the days of the bad King John. 
He caused Magna Charta to be still more improved, and so 
amended the Forest Laws that a Peasant was no longer put 
to death for killing a stag in a Ro}- al Forest, but was only 
imprisoned. It would have been well for England if it could 
have had so good a Protector many years longer, but that 
was not to be. Within three years after the 3 r oung King's 
Coronation, Lord Pembroke died ; and } T ou may see his tomb, 
at this day, in the old Temple Church in London. 

The Protectorship was now divided. Peter de Roches, 
whom King John had made Bishop of Winchester, was en- 
trusted with the care of the person of the young sovereign ; 
and the exercise of the Ro} T al authority was confided to Earl 
Hubert de Burgh. These two personages had from the first 
no liking for each other, and soon became enemies. When 
the } T oung King was declared of age, Peter de Roches, finding 
that Hubert increased in power and favor, retired discon- 
tentedly, and went abroad. For nearly ten years afterwards 
Hubert had full sway alone. 

But ten 3 T ears is a long time to hold the favor of a King. 
This King, too, as he grew up, showed a strong resemblance 
to his father, in feebleness, inconsistenc}^, and irresolution. 
The best that can be said of him is that he was not cruel. 
De Roches coming home again, after ten years, and being a 
novelt3 T , the King began to favor him and to look colclty on 
Hubert. Wanting mone3 T besides, and having made Hubert 
rich, he began to dislike Hubert. At last he was made to 
believe, or pretended to believe, that Hubert had misappro- 



138 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

priated some of the Royal treasure ; and ordered him to fur- 
nish an account of all he had done in his administration. 
Besides which, the foolish charge was brought against Hubert 
that he had made himself the King's favorite by magic. Hu- 
bert very well knowing that he could never defend himself 
against such nonsense, and that his old enemy must be deter- 
mined on his ruin, instead of answering the charges fled to 
Merton Abbe}'. Then the King, in a violent passion, sent 
for the Mayor of London, and said to the Maj'or, " Take 
twenty thousand citizens, and drag me Hubert de Burgh out 
of that abbey, and bring him here." The Mayor posted off 
to do it, but the Archbishop of Dublin (who was a friend of 
Hubert's) warning the King that an abbey was a sacred place, 
and that if he committed any violence there, he must answer 
for it to the Church, the King changed his mind and called 
the Mayor back, and declared that Hubert should have four 
months to prepare his defence, and should be safe and free 
during that time. 

Hubert, who relied upon the King's word, though I think 
he was old enough to have known better, came out of Merton 
Abbey upon these conditions, and journej^ed away to see his 
wife : a Scottish Princess who was then at St. Eclmund's- 
Burjf. 

Almost as soon as he had departed from the Sanctuary, 
his enemies persuaded the weak King to send out one Sir 
Godfrey de Crancumb, who commanded three hundred vag- 
abonds called the Black Band, with orders to seize him. 
They came up with him at a little town in Essex, called 
Brentwood, when he was in bed. He leaped out of bed, got 
out of the house, fled to the church, ran up to the altar, and 
laid his hand upon the cross. Sir Godfrey and the Black 
Band, caring neither for church, altar, nor cross, dragged 
him forth to the church door, with their drawn swords flash- 
ing round his head, and sent for a Smith to rivet a set of 
chains upon him. When the Smith (I wish I knew his name !) 
was brought, all dark and swarthy with the smoke of his 



HENRY THE THIRD. 139 

forge, and panting with the speed he had made ; and the 
Black Band, falling aside to show him the Prisoner, cried 
with a loud uproar, "Make the fetters heavy! make them 
strong ! " the Smith dropped upon his knee — but not to the 
Black Band — and said, " This is the brave Earl Hubert de 
Burgh, who fought at Dover Castle, and destroyed the French 
fleet, and has done his country much good service. You 
may kill me, if }-ou like, but I will never make a chain for 
Earl Hubert de Burgh ! " 

The Black Band never blushed, or they might have blushed 
at this. They knocked the Smith about from one to another, 
and swore at him, and tied the Earl on horseback, undressed 
as he was, and carried him off to the Tower of London. The 
Bishops, however, were so indignant at the violation of the 
Sanctuary of the Church, that the frightened King soon 
ordered the Black Band to take him back again ; at the same 
time commanding the Sheriff of Essex to prevent his escaping 
out of Brentwood Church. Well! the Sheriff dug a deep 
trench all round the church, and erected a high fence, and 
watched the church night and day ; the Black Band and their 
Captain watched it too, like three hundred and one black 
wolves. For thirty-nine days, Hubert de Burgh remained 
within. At length, upon the fortieth day, cold and hunger 
were too much for him, and he gave himself up to the Black 
Band, who carried him off, for the second time, to the Tower. 
When his trial came on, he refused to plead ; but at last it 
was arranged that he should give up all the roj^al lands which 
had been bestowed upon him, and should be kept at the Castle 
of Devizes, in what was called "free prison," in charge of 
four knights appointed by four lords. There, he remained 
almost a }'ear, until, learning that a follower of his old enemy 
the Bishop was made Keeper of the Castle, and fearing that 
he might be killed by treachery, he climbed the ramparts one 
dark night, dropped from the top of the high Castle wall into 
the moat, and coming safely to the ground, took refuge in 
another church. From this place he was delivered by a party 



140 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

of horse despatched to his help by some nobles, who were by 
this time in revolt against the King, and assembled in Wales. 
He was finally pardoned and restored to his estates, but he 
lived privately, and never more aspired to a high post in the 
realm, or to a high place in the King's favor. And thus end 

— more happily than the stories of many favorites of Kings 

— the adventures of Earl Hubert de Burgh. 

The nobles, who had risen in revolt, were stirred up to 
rebellion by the overbearing conduct of the Bishop of Win- 
chester, who, finding that the King secretly hated the Great 
Charter which had been forced from his father, did his ut- 
most to confirm him in that dislike, and in the preference he 
showed to foreigners over the English. Of this, and of his 
even publicly declaring that the Barons of England were 
inferior to those of France, the English Lords complained 
with such bitterness, that the King, finding them well sup- 
ported by the clergy, became frightened for his throne, and 
sent away the Bishop and all his foreign associates. On his 
marriage, however, with Eleanor, a French lady, the daugh- 
ter of the Count of Provence, he openly favored the foreign- 
ers again ; and so many of his wife's relations came over, 
and made such an immense family-party at court, and got so 
many good things, and pocketed so mnch money, and were 
so high with the English whose money they pocketed, that 
the bolder English Barons murmured openly about a clause 
there was in the Great Charter, which provided for the ban- 
ishment of unreasonable favorites. But the foreigners only 
laughed disdainfully, and said, " What are your English 
laws to us ? " 

King Philip of France had died, and had been succeeded 
by Prince Louis, who had also died after a short reign of 
three } r ears, and had been succeeded by his son of the same 
name — so moderate and just a man that he was not the 
least in the world like a King, as Kings went. Isabella, 
King Henry's mother, wished ver} 7 much (for a certain spite 
she had) that England should make war against this King ; 



HENRY THE THIRD. 141 

and, as King Henry was a mere puppet in anybody's hands 
who knew how to manage his feebleness, she easily carried 
her point with him. But the Parliament were determined to 
give him no money for such a war. So, to defy the Parlia- 
ment, he packed up thirty large casks of silver — I don't 
know how he got so much ; I dare say he screwed it out of 
the miserable Jews — and put them aboard ship, and went 
away himself to carcy war into France : accompanied by his 
mother and his brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall, who was 
rich and clever. But he only got well beaten, and came home. 

The good-humor of the Parliament was not restored b}' 
this. They reproached the King with wasting the public 
money to make greedy foreigners rich, and were so stern 
with him, and so determined not to let him have more of it to 
waste if they could help it, that he was at his wit's end for 
some, and tried so shamelessly to get all he could from his 
subjects by excuses or b} T force, that the people used to sa}' 
the King was the sturdiest beggar in England. He took the 
Cross, thinking to get some money by that means ; but, as it 
was very well known that he never meant to go on a crusade, 
he got none. In all this contention, the Londoners were 
particularly keen against the King, and the King hated them 
warmly in return. Hating or loving, however, made no 
difference ; he continued in the same condition for nine or 
ten years, when at last the Barons said that if he would sol- 
emnly confirm their liberties afresh, the Parliament would 
vote him a large sum. 

As he readily consented, there was a great meeting held 
in Westminster Hall, one pleasant day in May, when 
all the clergy, dressed in their robes and holding every 
one of them a burning candle in his hand, stood up (the 
Barons being also there) while the Archbishop of Can- 
terbury read the sentence of excommunication against any 
man, and all men, who should henceforth, in any way, in- 
fringe the Great Charter of the Kingdom. When he had 
done, they all put out their burning candles with a curse upon 



142 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

the soul of any one, and every one, who should merit that 
sentence. The King concluded with an oath to keep the 
Charter, " As I am a man, as I am a Christian, as I am a 
Knight, as I am a King ! " 

It was easy to make oaths, and easy to break them ; and 
the King did both, as his father had done before him. He 
took to his old courses again when he was supplied with 
monejr, and soon cured of their weakness the few who had 
ever really trusted him. When his money was gone, and he 
was once more borrowing and begging everywhere with a 
meanness worthy of his nature, he got into a difficulty with 
the Pope respecting the Crown of Sicily, which the Pope said 
he had a right to give away, and which he offered to King 
Henry for his second son, Prince Edmund. But, if you or 
I give away what we have not got, and what belongs to 
somebody else, it is likely that the person to whom we give 
it, will have some trouble in taking it. It was exactly so in 
this case. It was necessary to conquer the Sicilian Crown 
before it could be put upon young Edmund's head. It could 
not be conquered without money. The Pope ordered the 
clergy to raise money. The clergy, however, were not so 
obedient to him as usual ; they had been disputing with him 
for some time about his unjust preference of Italian Priests 
in England ; and they had begun to doubt whether the King's 
chaplain, whom he allowed to be paid for preaching in seven 
hundred churches, could possibly be, even by the Pope's 
favor, in seven hundred places at once. " The Pope and the 
King together," said the Bishop of London, " may take the 
mitre off my head ; but, if they do, they will find that I shall 
put on a soldier's helmet. I pay nothing." The Bishop of 
"Worcester was as bold as the Bishop of London, and would 
pay nothing either. Such sums as the more timid or more 
helpless of the clergy did raise were squandered away, with- 
out doing any good to the King, or bringing the Sicilian 
Crown an inch nearer to Prince Edmund's head. The end 
of the business was, that the Pope gave the Crown to the 



HENRY THE THIRD. 143 

brother of the King of France (who conquered it for him- 
self) , and sent the King of England in a bill of one hundred 
thousand pounds for the expenses of not having won it. 

The King was now so much distressed that we might 
almost pity him, if it were possible to pity a King so shabby 
and ridiculous. His clever brother, Richard, had bought the 
title of King of the Romans from the German people, and 
was no longer near him, to help him with advice. The 
clergy, resisting the very Pope, were in alliance with the 
Barons. The Barons were headed by Simon de Montfort, 
Earl of Leicester, married to King Henry's sister, and, 
though a foreigner himself, the most popular man in Eng- 
land against the foreign favorites. When the King next 
met his Parliament, the Barons, led by this Earl, came before 
him, armed from head to foot, and cased in armor. When 
the Parliament again assembled, in a month's time, at Ox- 
ford, this Earl was at their head, and the King was obliged 
to consent, on oath, to what was called a Committee of Gov- 
ernment : consisting of twenty-four members : twelve chosen 
by the Barons, and twelve chosen by himself. 

But, at a good time for him, his brother Richard came 
back. Richard's first act (the Barons would not admit him 
into England on other terms) was to swear to be faithful to 
the Committee of Government — which he immediately began 
to oppose with all his might. Then, the Barons began to 
quarrel among themselves ; especially the proud Earl of 
Gloucester with the Earl of Leicester, who went abroad in 
disgust. Then, the people began to be dissatisfied with the 
Barons, because they did not do enough for them. The 
King's chances seemed so good again at length, that he took 
heart enough — or caught it from his brother — to tell the 
Committee of Government that he abolished them — as to 
his oath, never mind that, the Pope said ! — and to seize all 
the money in the Mint, and to shut himself up in the Tower 
of London. Here he was joined by his onby son, Prince 
Edward; and, from the Tower, he made public a letter of 



144 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

the Pope's to the world in general, informing all men that 
he had been an excellent and just King for five-and-forty 
3 r ears. 

As everybody knew he had been nothing of the sort, 
nobody cared much for this document. It so chanced that 
the proud Earl of Gloucester dying, was succeeded by his 
son ; and that his son, instead of being the enemy of the 
Earl of Leicester, was (for the time) his friend. It fell out, 
therefore, that these two Earls joined their forces, took sev- 
eral of the Royal Castles in the country, and advanced as 
hard as they could on London. The London people, always 
opposed to the King, declared for them with great joy. The 
King himself remained shut up, not at all gloriously, in the 
Tower. Prince Edward made the best of his way to Windsor 
Castle. His mother, the Queen, attempted to follow him by 
water, but the people seeing her barge rowing up the river, 
and hating her with all their hearts, ran to London Bridge, 
got together a quantity of stones and mud, and pelted the 
barge as it came through, crying furiouslv, "Drown the 
witch ! Drown her ! " They were so near doing it that 
the Mayor took the old lady under his protection, and shut 
her up in St. Paul's until the danger was past. 

It would require a great deal of writing on my part, and a 
great deal of reading on yours, to follow the King through 
his disputes with the Barons, and to follow the Barons 
through their disputes with one another — so I will make 
short work of it for both of us, and only relate the chief 
events that arose out of these quarrels. The good King of 
France was asked to decide between them. He gave it as 
his opinion that the King must maintain the Great Charter, 
and that the Barons must give up the Committee of Govern- 
ment, and all the rest that had been done by the Parliament 
at Oxford : which the Royalists, or King's part}', scornfully 
called the Mad Parliament. The Barons declared that these 
were not fair terms, and they would not accept them. Then 
they caused the great bell of St. Paul's to be tolled, for the 



HENRY THE THIRD. 145 

purpose of rousing up the London people, who armed them- 
selves at the dismal sound and formed quite an army in the 
streets. I am sorry to say, however, that instead of falling 
irpon the King's party with Whom their quarrel was, they fell 
upon the miserable Jews, and killed at least five hundred of 
them. They pretended that some of these Jews were on the 
King's side, and that they kept hidden in their houses, for 
the destruction of the people, a certain terrible composition 
called Greek Fire, which could not be put out with water, but 
only burnt the fiercer for it. What they really did keep 
in their houses was money ; and this their cruel enemies 
wanted, and this their cruel enemies took, like robbers and 
murderers . 

The Earl of Leicester put himself at the head of these Lon- 
doners and other forces, and followed the King to Lewes in 
Sussex, where he lay encamped with his army. Before giv- 
ing the King's forces battle here, the Earl addressed his 
soldiers, and said that King Henry the Third had broken so 
mairy oaths, that he had become the enemy of God, and 
therefore they would wear white crosses on their breasts, as 
if the} T were arrayed, not against a fellow-Christian, but 
against a Turk. White-crossed accordingly, they rushed 
into the fight. They would have lost the clay — the King 
having on his side all the foreigners in England : and, from 
Scotland, John Comyn, John Baliol, and Robert Bruce, 
with all their men, — but for the impatience of Prince Ed- 
ward, who, in his hot desire to have vengeance on the people 
of London, threw the whole of his father's army into con- 
fusion. He was taken Prisoner ; so was the King ; so was 
the King's brother the King of the Romans ; and five thou- 
sand Englishmen were left dead upon the bloody grass. 

For this success the Pope excommunicated the Earl of 
Leicester : which neither the Earl nor the people cared at all 
about. The people loved him and supported him, and he 
became the real King ; having all the power of the govern- 
ment in his own hands, though he was outwardly respectful 

10 



146 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

to King Heniy the Third, whom he took with him wherever 
he went, like a poor old limp court-card. He summoned a 
Parliament (in the year one thousand two hundred and sixt} T - 
five) which was the first Parliament in England that the 
people had any real share in electing ; and he grew more and 
more in favor with the people every day, and they stood by 
him in whatever he did. 

Many of the other Barons, and particularly the Earl of 
Gloucester, who had become by this time as proud as his 
father, grew jealous of this powerful and popular Earl, who 
was proud too, and began to conspire against him. Since 
the battle of Lewies, Prince Edward had been kept as a host- 
age, and, though he was otherwise treated like a Prince, had 
never been allowed to go out without attendants appointed 
by the Earl of Leicester, who watched him. The conspiring 
Lords found means to propose to him, in secret, that they 
should assist him to escape, and should make him their 
leader : to which he very heartily assented. 

So, on a day that was agreed upon, he said to his attend- 
ants after dinner (being then at Hereford), " I should like to 
ride on horseback, this fine afternoon, a little wa} T into the 
country." As they, too, thought it would be very pleasant 
to have a canter in the sunshine, they all rode out of the 
town together in a gay little troop. When they- came to a 
fine level piece of turf, the Prince fell to comparing their 
horses one with another, and offering bets that one was 
faster than another ; and the attendants, suspecting no 
harm, rode galloping matches until their horses were quite 
tired. The Prince rode no matches himself, but looked on 
from his saddle, and staked his money. Thus they passed 
the whole meriy afternoon. Now, the sun was setting, and 
they were all going slowly up a hill, the Prince's horse very 
fresh and all the other horses very weaiy, when a strange 
rider mounted on a grey steed appeared at the top of the 
hill, and waved his hat. u What does the fellow mean?" 
said the attendants one to another. The Prince answered on 



HENRY THE THIRD. 147 

the instant b3 T setting spurs to his horse, clashing away at his 
utmost speed, joining the man, riding into the midst of a 
little crowd of horsemen who were then seen waiting under 
some trees, and who closed around him ; and so he departed 
in a cloud of dust, leaving the road empty of all but the 
baffled attendants, who sat looking at one another, while 
their horses drooped their ears and panted. 

The Prince joined the Earl of Gloucester at Ludlow. The 
Earl of Leicester, with a part of the army and the stupid old 
King, was at Hereford. One of the Earl of Leicester's sons, 
Simon de Montfort, with another part of the arm}-, was in 
Sussex. To prevent these two parts from uniting was the 
Prince's first object. He attacked Simon de Montfort by 
night, defeated him, seized his banners and treasure, and 
forced him into Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire, which 
belonged to his family. 

His father, the Earl of Leicester, in the meanwhile, not 
knowing what had happened, marched out of Hereford, with 
his part of the army and the King, to meet him. He came, 
on a bright morning in August, to Evesham, which is watered 
b}' the pleasant river Avon. Looking rather anxiously across 
the prospect towards Kenilworth, he saw his own banners 
advancing ; and his face brightened with jo}^. But, it clouded 
darkly when he presently perceived that the banners were 
captured, and in the enemy's hands; and he said, "It is 
over. The Lord have mercy on our souls, for our bodies are 
Prince Edward's ! " 

He fought like a true Knight, nevertheless. When his 
horse was killed under him, he fought on foot. It was a 
fierce battle and the dead lay in heaps everywhere. The old 
King, stuck up in a suit of armor on a big war-horse, which 
did n't mind him at all, and which carried him into all sorts 
of places where he did n't want to go, got into everybody's 
way, and very nearly got knocked on the head b} T one of his 
son's men. But he managed to pipe out, "I am Harry of 
Winchester ! " and the Prince, who heard him, seized his 



148 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

bridle, and took him out of peril. The Earl of Leicester 
still fought bravely, until his best son Henry was killed, and 
the bodies of his best friends choked his path ; and then he 
fell, still fighting, sword in hand. They mangled his body, 
and sent it as a present to a noble lady — but a very un- 
pleasant lady, I should think — who was the wife of his worst 
enemy. They could not mangle his memory in the minds of 
the faithful people, though. Many years afterwards, they 
loved him more than ever, and regarded him as a Saint, and 
always spoke of him as " Sir Simon the Righteous." 

And even though he was dead, the cause for which he had 
fought still lived, and was strong, and forced itself upon the 
King in the very hour of victory. Henry found himself 
obliged to respect the Great Charter, however much he hated 
it, and to make laws similar to the laws of the Great Earl of 
Leicester, and to be moderate and forgiving towards the 
people at last — even towards the people of London, who had 
so long opposed him. There were more risings before all 
this was clone, but they were set at rest by these means, and 
Prince Edward did his best in all things to restore peace. 
One Sir Adam de Gourdon was the last dissatisfied knight 
in arms ; but the Prince vanquished him in single combat, 
in a wood, and nobly gave him his life, and became his 
friend, instead of slaying him. Sir Adam was not ungrate- 
ful. He ever afterwards remained devoted to his generous 
conqueror. 

When the troubles of the Kingdom were thus calmed, 
Prince Edward and his cousin Henry took the Cross, and 
went away to the Holy Land, with many English Lords and 
Knights. Four years afterwards the King of the Romans 
died, and, next }'ear (one thousand two hundred and seventy- 
two) , his brother the weak king of England died. He was 
sixty -eight years old then, and had reigned fifty-six years. 
He was as much of a King in death, as he had ever been in 
life. He was the mere pale shadow of a King at all times. 



EDWARD THE FIRST. 149 



CHAPTER XVI. 

ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FIRST, CALLED LONGSHANKS. 

It was now the year of our Lord one thousand two hundred 
and seventy-two ; and Prince Edward, the heir to the throne, 
being away in the Holy Land, knew nothing of his father's 
dearth. The Barons, however, proclaimed him King, imme- 
diately after the Royal funeral ; and the people very willingly 
consented, since most men knew too well by this time what 
the horrors of a contest for the crown were. So King Ed- 
ward the First, called, in a not very complimentary manner, 
Longshanks, because of the slenderness of his legs, was 
peacefully accepted by the English Nation. 

His legs had need to be strong, however long and thin they 
were ; for they had to support him through many difficulties 
on the fiety sands of Asia, where his small force of soldiers 
fainted, died, deserted, and seemed to melt slwslj. But his 
prowess made light of it, and he said, " I will go on, if I go 
on with no other follower than nry groom ! " 

A Prince of this spirit gave the Turks a deal of trouble. 
He stormed Nazareth, at which place, of all places on earth, 
I am sorry to relate, he made a frightful slaughter of innocent 
people ; and then he went to Acre, where he got a truce of 
ten years from the Sultan. He had very nearly lost his life 
in Acre, through the treachery of a Saracen Noble, called the 
Emir of Jaffa, who, making the pretence that he had some 
idea of turning Christian and wanted to know all about that 
religion, sent a trusty messenger to Edward very often — 
with a dagger in his sleeve. At last, one Friday in Whitsun 
week, when it was very hot, and all the sandy prospect lay 



150 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

beneath the blazing sun, burnt up like a great overdone bis- 
cuit, and Edward was lying on a couch, dressed for coolness 
in only a loose robe, the messenger, with his chocolate-colored 
face and his bright dark eyes and white teeth, came creeping 
in with a letter, and kneeled down like a tame tiger. But, 
the moment Edward stretched out his hand to take the letter, 
the tiger made a spring at his heart. He was quick, but 
Edward was quick too. He seized the traitor by his choco- 
late throat, threw him to the ground, and slew him with the 
very dagger he had drawn. The weapon had struck Edward 
in the arm, and although the wound itself was slight, it 
threatened to be mortal, for the blade of the dagger had been 
smeared with poison. Thanks, however, to a better surgeon 
than was often to be found in those times, and to some 
wholesome herbs, and above all, to his faithful wife, Eleanor, 
who devotedly nursed him, and is said by some to have sucked 
the poison from the wound with her own red lips (which I am 
very willing to believe), Edward soon recovered and was 
sound again. 

As the King his father had sent entreaties to him to return 
home, he now began the journey. He had got as far as Italy, 
when he met messengers who brought him intelligence of the 
King's death. Hearing that all was quiet at home, he made 
no haste to return to his own dominions, but paid a visit to 
the Pope, and went in state through various Italian Towns, 
where he was welcomed with acclamations as a mighty cham- 
pion of the Cross from the Holy Land, and where he received 
presents of purple mantles and prancing horses, and went 
along in great triumph. The shouting people little knew 
that he was the last English monarch who would ever embark 
in a crusade, or that within twenty years every conquest which 
the Christians had made in the Holy Land at the cost of so 
much blood, would be won back by the Turks. But all this 
came to pass. 

There was, and there is, an old town standing in a plain in 
France, called Chalons. When the King was coming towards 



EDWARD THE FIRST. 151 

this place on his way to England, a wily French Lord, called 
the Count of Chalons, sent him a polite challenge to come 
with his knights and hold a fair tournament with the Count 
and his knights, and make a day of it with sword and lance. 
It was represented to the King that the Count of Chalons was 
not to be trusted, and that, instead of a holiday fight for mere 
show and in good humor, he secretly meant a real battle, in 
which the English should be defeated b^y superior force. 

The King, however, nothing afraid, went to the appointed 
place on the appointed day with a thousand followers. When 
the Count came with two thousand and attacked the English 
in earnest, the English rushed at them with such valor that 
the fount's men and the Count's horses soon began to be 
tumbled down all over the field. The Count himself seized 
the King round the neck, but the King tumbled him out of 
his saddle in return for the compliment, and, jumping from 
his own horse, and standing over him, beat away at his iron 
armor like a blacksmith hammering on his anvil. Even when 
the Count owned himself defeated and offered his sword, the 
King would not do him the honor to take it, but made him 
3'iclcl it up to a common soldier. There had been such fury 
shown in this fight, that it was afterwards called the little 
Battle of Chalons. 

The English were very well disposed to be proud of their 
King after these adventures ; so, when he landed at Dover in 
the year one thousand two hundred and seventy-four (being 
then thirtj r -six years old) , and went on to Westminster, where 
he and his good Queen were crowned with great magnificence, 
splendid rejoicings took place. For the coronation-feast 
there were provided, among other eatables, four hundred 
oxen, four hundred sheep, four hundred and fifty pigs, eigh- 
teen wild boars, three hundred flitches of bacon, and twenty 
thousand fowls. The fountains and conduits in the street 
flowed with red and white wine instead of water ; the rich 
citizens hung silks and cloths of the brightest colors out of 
their windows, to increase the beautj T of the show, and threw 



152 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

out gold and silver by whole handfuls to make scrambles for 
the crowd. In short, there was such eating and drinking, 
such music and capering, such a ringing of bells and tossing 
of caps, such a shouting, and singing, and revelling, as the 
narrow overhanging streets of old London City had not wit- 
nessed for many a long day. All the people were merry — 
except the poor Jews — who, trembling within their houses, 
and scarcely daring to peep out, began to foresee that they 
would have to find the money for this joviality sooner or 
later. 

To dismiss this sad subject of the Jews for the present, I 
am sorry to add that in this reign they were most un- 
mercifully pillaged. They were hanged in great numbers, 
on accusations of having clipped the King's coin — which all 
kinds of people had done. They were heavily taxed ; the}' 
were disgracefully badged ; they were, on one day, thirteen 
years after the coronation, taken up with their wives and 
children and thrown into beastly prisons, until the} T purchased 
their release 03^ pa} T ing to the King twelve thousand pounds. 
Finally, every kind of property belonging to them was seized 
by the King, except so little as would defray the charge of 
their taking themselves away into foreign countries. Many 
3^ears elapsed before the hope of gain induced any of their 
race to return to England, where they had been treated so 
heartlessly and had suffered so much. 

If King Edward the First had been as bad a king to Chris- 
tians as he was to Jews, he would have been bad indeed. 
But he was, in general, a wise and great monarch, under 
whom the country much improved. He had no love for the 
Great Charter — few Kings had, through many many years 
— but he had high qualities. The first bold object which he 
conceived when he came home, was, to unite under one Sover- 
eign England, Scotland, and Wales ; the two last of which 
countries had each a little king of its own, about whom the 
people were always quarrelling and fighting, and making a 
prodigious disturbance — a great deal more than he was 



EDWARD THE FIRST. 153 

worth. In the course of King Edward's reign he was en- 
gaged, besides, in a war with France. To make these quar- 
rels clearer, we will separate their histories and take them 
/thus. Wales, first. France, second. Scotland, third. 

Llewellyn was the Prince of Wales. He had been on the 
side of the Barons in the reign of the stupid old King, but had 
afterwards sworn allegiance to him. When King Edward 
came to the throne, Llewellyn was required to swear alle- 
giance to him also ; which he refused to do. The King, being 
crowned and in his own dominions, three times more required 
Llewellyn to come and do homage ; and three times more 
Llewellyn said he would rather not. He was going to be 
married to Eleanor de Montfort, a young lady of the family 
mentioned in the last reign ; and it chanced that this young 
lad}', coming from France with her 3'oungest brother, Emeric, 
was taken by an English ship, and was ordered by the Eng- 
lish King to be detained. Upon this, the quarrel came to a 
head. The King went, with his fleet, to the coast of Wales, 
where, so encompassing Llewellyn that he could only take 
refuge in the bleak mountain region of Snowdon in which no 
provisions could reach him, he was soon starved into an apol- 
ogy, and into a treaty of peace, and into paying the expenses 
of the war. The King, however, forgave him some of the 
hardest conditions of the treaty, and consented to his mar- 
riage. And he now thought he had reduced Wales to 
obedience. 

But, the Welsh, although they were naturally a gentle, 
quiet, pleasant people, who liked to receive strangers in their 
cottages among the mountains, and to set before them with 
free hospitality whatever the}' had to eat and drink, and to 
play to them on their harps, and sing their native ballads to 
them, were a people of great spirit when their blood was up. 
Englishmen, after this affair, began to be insolent in Wales, 
and to assume the air of masters ; and the Welsh pride could 
not bear it. Moreover, they believed in that unlucky old 



154 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Merlin, some of whose unlucky old prophecies somebody al- 
ways seemed doomed to remember when there was a chance 
of its doing harm ; and just at this time some blind old gen- 
tleman with a harp, and a long white beard, who was an ex- 
cellent person, but had become of an unknown age and tedious, 
burst out with a declaration that Merlin had predicted that 
when English money had become round, a Prince of Wales 
would be crowned in London. Now, King Edward had 
recently forbidden the English penny to be cut into halves 
and quarters for halfpence and farthings, and had actually in- 
troduced a round coin ; therefore, the Welsh people said this 
was the time Merlin meant, and rose accordingly. 

King Edward had bought over Prince David, Llewellyn's 
brother, by heaping favors upon him ; but he was the first to 
revolt, being perhaps troubled in his conscience. One stormy 
night, he surprised the Castle of Hawarden, in possession of 
which an English nobleman had been left ; killed the whole 
garrison, and carried off the nobleman a prisoner to Snowdon. 
Upon this, the Welsh people rose like one man. King Ed- 
ward, with his arm}', marching from Worcester to the Menai 
Strait, crossed it — near to where the wonderful tubular iron 
bridge now, in da}'s so different, makes a passage for railway 
trains — by a bridge of boats that enabled forty men to march 
abreast. He subdued the Island of Anglesea, and sent his 
men forward to observe the enenrv. The sudden appearance 
of the Welsh created a panic among them, and the} T fell back 
to the bridge. The tide had in the meantime risen and sepa- 
rated the boats ; the Welsh pursuing them, they were driven 
into the sea, and there the} r sank, in their heavy iron armor, 
b} r thousands. After this victory Llewellyn, helped bj r the 
severe winter- weather of Wales, gained another battle : but 
the King ordering a portion of his English army to advance 
through South Wales, and catch him between two foes, and 
Llewellyn bravely turning to meet this new enemy, he was 
surprised and killed — very meanty, for he was unarmed and 
defenceless. His head was struck off and sent to London, 



EDWARD THE FIRST. 155 

where it was fixed up on the Tower, encircled with a wreath, 
some sa}' of ivy, some sa} T of willow, some sa}- of silver, to 
make it look like a ghastly coin in ridicule of the prediction. 

David, however, still held out for six months, though ea- 
gerly sought after by the King, and hunted by his own coun- 
trymen. One of them finally betrayed him with his wife and 
children. He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quar- 
tered ; and from that time this became the established pun- 
ishment of Traitors in England — a punishment wholly without 
excuse, as being revolting, vile, and cruel, after its object is 
dead : and which has no sense in it, as its only real degrada- 
tion (and that nothing can blot out) is to the countiy that 
perniits on anj< consideration such abominable barbarity. 

Wales was now subdued. The Queen giving birth to a 
young prince in the Castle of Carnarvon, the King showed 
him to the Welsh people as their countiyman, and called him 
Prince of Wales ; a title that has ever since been borne by 
the heir-apparent to the English Throne — which that little 
Prince soon became, b}~ the death of his elder brother. The 
King did better things for the Welsh than that, by improving 
their laws and encouraging their trade. Disturbances still 
took place, chiefly occasioned by the avarice and pride of the 
English Lords, on whom Welsh lands and castles had been 
bestowed : but they were subdued, and the countiy never rose 
again. There is a legend that to prevent the people from 
being incited to rebellion by the songs of their bards and 
harpers, Edward had them all put to death. Some of them 
may have fallen among other men who held out against the 
King ; but this general slaughter is, I think, a fancy of the 
harpers themselves, who, I dare say, made a song about it 
many years afterwards, and sang it by the Welsh firesides 
until it came to be believed. 

The foreign war of the reign of Edward the First arose in 
this way. The crews of two vessels, one a Norman ship, and 
the other an English ship, happened to go to the same place 



156 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

in their boats to fill their casks with fresh water. Being 
rough angry fellows, they began to quarrel, and then to fight 

— the English with their fists ; the Normans with their knives 

— and, in the fight, a Norman was killed. The Norman crew, 
instead of revenging themselves upon those English sailors 
with whom they had quarrelled (who were too strong for 
them, I suspect), took to their ship again in a great rage, 
attacked the first English ship they met, laid hold of an unof- 
fending merchant who happened to be on board, and brutally 
hanged him in the rigging of their own vessel with a dog at 
his feet. This so enraged the English sailors that there was 
no restraining them ; and whenever, and wherever, English 
sailors met Norman sailors, they fell upon each other tooth 
and nail. The Irish and Dutch sailors took part with the 
English ; the French and Genoese sailors helped the Nor- 
mans ; and thus the greater part of the mariners sailing over 
the sea became, in their way, as violent and raging as the sea 
itself when it is disturbed. 

King Edward's fame had been so high abroad that he had 
been chosen to decide a difference between France and another 
foreign power, and had lived upon the Continent three years. 
At first, neither he nor the French King Philip (the good 
Louis had been dead some time) interfered in these quarrels ; 
but when a fleet of eighty English ships engaged and utterly 
defeated a Norman fleet of two hundred, in a pitched battle 
fought round a ship at anchor, in which no quarter was given, 
the matter became too serious to be passed over. King Ed- 
ward, as Duke of Guienne, was summoned to present himself 
before the King of France, at Paris, and answer for the dam- 
age done by his sailor subjects. At first, he sent the Bishop 
of London as his representative, and then his brother Edmund, 
who was married to the French Queen's mother. I am afraid 
Edmund was an easy man, and allowed himself to be talked 
over by his charming relations, the French court ladies ; at 
all events, he was induced to give up his brother's dukedom 
for forty days — as a mere form, the French King said, to 



EDWARD THE FIRST. 157 

satisfy his honor — and he was so ver}- much astonished, when 
the time was out, to find that the French King had no idea of 
giving it up again, that I should not wonder if it hastened 
his death ; which soon took place. 

King Edward was a King to win his foreign dukedom back 
again, if it could be won by energy and valor. He raised a 
large army, renounced his allegiance as Duke of Guienne, and 
crossed the sea to carry war into France. Before aii3 T im- 
portant battle was fought, however, a truce was agreed upon 
for two years ; and in the course of that time, the Pope ef- 
fected a reconciliation. King Edward, who was now a wid- 
ower, having lost his affectionate and good wife, Eleanor, 
married the French King's sister, Margaret, and the Prince 
of' Wales was contracted to the French King's daughter, 
Isabella. 

Out of bad things good things sometimes arise. Out of 
this hanging of the innocent merchant, and the bloodshed and 
strife it caused, there came to be established one of the 
greatest powers that the English people now possess. The 
preparations for the war being very expensive, and King Ed- 
ward greatly wanting money, and being veiy arbitrary in his 
wa} T s of raising it, some of the Barons began firmly to oppose 
him. Two of them, in particular, Humphrey Bohun, Earl 
of Hereford, and Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, were so 
stout against him that they maintained he had no right to 
command them to head his forces in Guienne, and flatly re- 
fused to go there. " By Heaven, Sir Earl," said the King to 
the Earl of Hereford, in a great passion, "you shall either go 
or be hanged ! " " By Heaven, Sir King," replied the Earl, 
" I will neither go nor yet will I be hanged ! " and both he 
and the other Earl sturdily left the court, attended by many 
Lords. The King tried every means of raising money. 
He taxed the clergy, in spite of all the Pope said to the con- 
trary ; and when they refused to pa} r , reduced them to sub- 
mission, b} r saying Ven* well, then they had no claim upon 
the government for protection, and any man might plunder 



158 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

them who would — which a good marty men were very ready 
to do, and very readily did, and which the clergy found too 
loring a game to be played at long. He seized all the wool 
and leather in the hands of the merchants, promising to pay 
for it some fine clay ; and he set a tax upon the exportation 
of wool, which was so unpopular among the traders that it 
was called "The evil toll." But all would not do. The 
Barons, led by those two great Earls, declared an} r taxes im- 
posed without the consent of Parliament, unlawful ; and the 
Parliament refused to impose taxes, until the King should 
confirm afresh the two Great Charters, and should solemnly 
declare in writing, that there was no power in the country to 
raise mone}^ from the people, evermore, but the power of Par- 
liament representing all ranks of the people. The King was 
very unwilling to diminish his own power by allowing this 
great privilege in the Parliament ; but there was no help for 
it, and he at last complied. We shall come to another King 
b}r-and-by, who might have saved his head from rolling off, if 
he had profited by this example. 

The people gained other benefits in Parliament from the 
good sense and wisdom of this King. Many of the laws were 
much improved ; provision was made for the greater safety of 
travellers, and the apprehension of thieves and murderers ; 
the priests were prevented from holding too much land, and so 
becoming too powerful ; and Justices of the Peace were first 
appointed (though not at first under that name) in various 
parts of the country. 

And now we come to Scotland, which was the great and 
lasting trouble of the reign of King Edward the First. 

About thirteen years after King Edward's coronation, Alex- 
ander the Third, the King of Scotland, died of a fall from his 
horse. He had been married to Margaret, King Edward's 
sister. All their children being dead, the Scottish crown 
became the right of a young Princess only eight years old, 
the daughter of Eric, King of Norway, who had married a 



EDWARD THE FIRST. 159 

■ daughter of the deceased sovereign. King Edward proposed, 
that the Maiden of Norway, as this Princess was called, 
should be engaged to be married to his eldest son ; but, un- 
fortunately, as she was coming over to England she fell sick, 
and landing on one of the Orkney Islands, died there. A 
great commotion immediately began in Scotland, where as 
many as thirteen nois}* claimants to the vacant throne started 
up and made a general confusion. 

King Edward being much renowned for his sagacity and 
justice, it seems to have been agreed to refer the dispute to 
him. He accepted the trust, and went with an army to the 
Border-land where England and Scotland joined. There, he 
called upon the Scottish gentlemen to meet him at the Castle 
of Norhain, on the English side of the river Tweed ; and to 
that Castle they came. But, before he would take an} T step 
in the business, he required those Scottish gentlemen, one 
and all, to do homage to him as their superior Lord ; and 
when they hesitated, he said " By holy Edward, whose crown 
I wear, I will have my rights, or I will die in maintaining 
them ! " The Scottish gentlemen, who had not expected this, 
were disconcerted, and asked for three weeks to think about 
it. 

At the end of the three weeks, another meeting took place, 
on a green plain on the Scottish side of the river. Of all the 
competitors for the Scottish throne, there were only two who 
had any real claim, in right of their near kindred to the Rojal 
family. These were John Baliol and Robert Bruce ; and 
the right was, I have no doubt, on the side of John Baliol. 
At this particular meeting John Baliol was not present, but 
Robert Bruce was ; and on Robert Bruce being formally 
asked whether he acknowledged the King of England for his 
superior lord, he answered, plainty and distinctly, Yes, he did. 
Next day, John Baliol appeared, and said the same. This 
point settled, some arrangements were made for inquiring 
into their titles. 

The inquiiy occupied a pretty long time — more than a 



160 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

year. While it was going on, King Edward took the oppor- 
tunity of making a journey through Scotland, and calling upon 
the Scottish people of all degrees to acknowledge themselves 
his vassals, or be imprisoned until they did. In the mean- 
while, Commissioners were appointed to conduct the inquiry, 
a Parliament was held at Berwick about it, the two claimants 
were heard at full length, and there was a vast amount of 
talking. At last, in the great hall of the Castle of Berwick, 
the King gave judgment in favor of John Baliol : who, con- 
senting to receive his crown by the King of England's favor 
and permission, was crowned at Scone, in an old stone chair 
which had been used for ages in the abbey there, at the cor- 
onations of Scottish Kings. Then, King Edward caused the 
great seal of Scotland, used since the late King's death, to 
be broken in four pieces, and placed in the English Treasury ; 
and considered that he now had Scotland (according to the 
common saying) under his thumb. 

Scotland had a strong will of its own yet, however. King 
Edward, determined that the Scottish King should not forget 
he was his vassal, summoned him repeatedly to come and 
defend himself and his Judges before the English Parliament 
when appeals from the decisions of Scottish courts of justice 
were being heard. At length, John Baliol, who had no great 
heart of his own, had so much heart put into him by the brave 
spirit of the Scottish people, who took this as a national insult, 
that he refused to come any more. Thereupon, the King 
further required him to help him in his war abroad (which 
was then in progress), and to give up, as security for his 
good behavior in future, the three strong Scottish Castles of 
Jedburgh, Roxburgh, and Berwick. Nothing of this being 
done ; on the contrary, the Scottish people concealing their 
King among their mountains in the Highlands and showing a 
determination to resist ; Edward marched to Berwick with an 
army of thirty thousand foot, and four thousand horse ; took 
the Castle, and slew its whole garrison, and the inhabitants 
of the town as well — men, women, and children. Lord 



EDWARD THE FIRST. 1G1 

Warrenxe, Earl of Surrey, then went on to the Castle of 
Dunbar, before which a battle was fought, and the whole 
Scottish army defeated with great slaughter. The victory 
being complete, the Earl of Surrey was left as Guardian of 
Scotland ; the principal offices in that kingdom were given to 
Englishmen ; the more powerful Scottish Nobles were obliged 
to come and live in England ; the Scottish crown and sceptre 
were brought away ; and even the old stone chair was carried 
off and placed in Westminster Abbe}*, where }*ou may see it 
now. Baliol had the Tower of London lent him for a resi- 
dence, with permission to range about within a circle of twenty 
miles. Three }*ears afterwards he was allowed to go to 
Normandy, where he had estates, and where he passed the 
remaining six years of his life : far more happily, I dare say, 
than he had lived for a long while in angry Scotland. 

Now, there was, in the West of Scotland, a gentleman of 
small fortune, named William Wallace, the second son of 
a Scottish knight. He was a man of great size and great 
strength ; he was ver}* brave and daring ; when he spoke to 
a bod}* of his countrymen, he could rouse them in a wonderful 
manner b}* the power of his burning words ; he loved Scotland 
dearly, and he hated England with his utmost might. The 
domineering conduct of the English who now held the places 
of trust in Scotland made them as intolerable to the proud 
Scottish people as they had been, under similar circumstances, 
to the Welsh ; and no man in all Scotland regarded them 
with so much smothered rage as William Wallace. One day, 
an Englishman in office, little knowing what he was, affronted 
him. Wallace instantly struck him dead, and taking refuge 
among the rocks and hills, and there joining with his country- 
man, Sir William Douglas, who was also in arms against 
King Edward, became the most resolute and undaunted 
champion of a people struggling for their independence that 
ever lived upon the earth. 

The English Guardian of the Kingdom fled before him, 
and, thus encouraged, the Scottish people revolted every- 

11 



162 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

where, and fell upon the English without mercy. The Earl 
of Surrey, by the King's commands, raised all the power of 
the Border-counties, and two English armies poured into 
Scotland. Only one Chief, in the face of those armies, stood 
by Wallace, who, with a force of forty thousand men, awaited 
the invaders at a place on the river Forth, within two miles of 
Stirling. Across the river there was only one poor wooden 
bridge, called the bridge of Kildean — so narrow, that but 
two men could cross it abreast. With his e} 7 es upon this 
bridge, Wallace posted the greater part of his men among 
some rising grounds, and waited calmly. When the English 
army came up on the opposite bank of the river, messengers 
were sent forward to offer terms. Wallace sent them back 
with a defiance, in the name of the freedom of Scotland. 
Some of the officers of the Earl of Surrey in command of 
the English, with their eyes also on the bridge, advised him 
to be discreet and not hasty. He, however, urged to imme- 
diate battle by some other officers, and particularly by Cres- 
singham, King Edward's treasurer, and a rash man, gave the 
word of command to advance. One thousand English crossed 
the bridge, two abreast ; the Scottish troops were as motion- 
less as stone images. Two thousand English crossed ; three 
thousand, four thousand, five. Not a feather, all this time, 
had been seen to stir among the Scottish bonnefe. Now, 
they all fluttered. " Forward, one party, to the foot of the 
Bridge!" cried Wallace, "and let no more English cross! 
The rest, down with me on the five thousand who have come 
over, and cut them all to pieces ! " It was done, in the sight 
of the whole remainder of the English army, who could give 
no help. Cressingham himself was killed, and the Scotch 
made whips for their horses of his skin. 

King Edward was abroad at this time, and during the 
successes on the Scottish side which followed, and which 
enabled bold Wallace to win the whole country back again, 
and even to ravage the English borders. But, after a few 
winter months, the King returned, and took the field with 



EDWARD THE FIRST. 163 

more than his usual energy. One night, when a kick from 
his horse as they both la}^ on the ground together broke two 
of his ribs, and a cry arose that he was killed, he leaped into 
his saddle, regardless of the pain he suffered, and rode 
through the camp. Day then appearing, he gave the word 
(still, of course, in that bruised and aching state) Forward ! 
and led his army on to near Falkirk, where the Scottish forces 
were seen drawn up on some stony ground, behind a morass. 
Here, he defeated Wallace, and killed fifteen thousand of 
his men. With the shattered remainder, Wallace drew back 
to Stirling ; but, being pursued, set fire to the town that it 
might give no help to the English, and escaped. The inhab- 
itants of Perth afterwards set fire to their houses for the same 
reason, and the King, unable to find provisions, was forced 
to withdraw his army. 

Another Robert Bruce, the grandson of him who had 
disputed the Scottish crown with Baliol, was now in arms 
against the King (that elder Bruce being dead), and also 
John Comyn, Baliol's nephew. These two young men might 
agree in opposing Edward, but coukl agree in nothing else, 
as they were rivals for the throne of Scotland. Probably it 
was because the} T knew this, and knew what troubles must 
arise even if they could hope to get the better of the great 
English King, that the principal Scottish people applied to 
the Pope for his interference. The Pope, on the principle of 
losing nothing for want of trying to get it, very coolly claimed 
that Scotland belonged to him ; but this was a little too much, 
and the Parliament in a friendly manner told him so. 

In the spring time of the year one thousand three hundred 
and three, the King sent Sir John Segrave, whom he made 
Governor of Scotland, with twentj^ thousand men, to reduce 
the rebels. Sir John was not as careful as he should have 
been, but encamped at Rosslyn, near Edinburgh, with his 
army divided into three parts. The Scottish forces saw their 
advantage ; fell on each part separately ; defeated each ; and 
killed all the prisoners. Then, came the King himself once 



164 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

more, as soon as a great army could be raised ; he passed 
through the whole north of Scotland, laying waste whatsoever 
came in his way ; and he took up his winter quarters at Dun- 
fermline. The Scottish cause now looked so hopeless, that 
Comyn and the other nobles made submission and received 
their pardons. Wallace alone stood out. He was invited to 
surrender, though on no distinct pledge that his life should be 
spared ; but he still defied the ireful King, and lived among 
the steep crags of the Highland glens, where the eagles made 
their nests, and where the mountain torrents roared, and the 
white snow was deep, and the bitter winds blew round his 
unsheltered head, as he lay through many a pitch-dark night 
wrapped up in his plaid. Nothing could break his spirit ; 
nothing could lower his courage ; nothing could induce him 
to forget or forgive his country's wrongs. Even when the 
Castle of Stirling, which had long held out, was besieged by 
the King with every kind of military engine then in use ; 
even when the lead upon cathedral roofs was taken down to 
help to make them ; even when the King, though an old man, 
commanded in the siege as if he were a youth, being so re- 
solved to conquer ; even when the brave garrison (then found 
with amazement to be not two hundred people, including 
several ladies) were starved and beaten out and were made 
to submit on their knees, and with every form of disgrace 
that could aggravate their sufferings ; even then, when there 
was not a ray of hope in Scotland, William Wallace was as 
proud and firm as if he had beheld the powerful and relent- 
less Edward tying dead at his feet. 

Who betrayed William Wallace in the end, is not quite cer- 
tain. That he was betrayed — probably b} T an attendant — is 
too true. He was taken to the Castle of Dumbarton, under Sir 
John Menteith, and thence to London, where the great fame 
of his bravery and resolution attracted immense concourses 
of people to behold him. He was tried in Westminster Hall, 
with a crown of laurel on his head — it is supposed because 
he was reported to have said that he ought to wear, or that 



EDWARD THE FIRST. 165 

he would wear, a crown there — and was found guilty as a 
robber, a murderer, and a traitor. What they called a rob- 
ber (he said to those who tried him) he was, because he had 
taken spoil from the King's men. What they called a mur- 
derer, he was, because he had slain an insolent Englishman. 
AVhat they called a traitor, he was not, for he had never 
sworn allegiance to the King, and had ever scorned to do it. 
He was dragged at the tails of horses to West Smithfield, 
and there hanged on a high gallows, torn open before he was 
dead, beheaded, and quartered. His head was set upon a 
pole on London Bridge, his right arm was sent to Newcastle, 
his left arm to Berwick, his legs to Perth and Aberdeen. But, 
if King Edward had had his boclv cut into inches, and had 
sent every separate inch into a separate town, he could not 
have dispersed it half so far and wide as his fame. Wallace 
will be remembered in songs and stories, while there are songs 
and stories in the English tongue, and Scotland will hold him 
dear while her lakes and mountains last. 

Released from this dreaded enemy, the King made a fairer 
plan of Government for Scotland, divided the offices of honor 
among Scottish gentlemen and English gentlemen, forgave 
past offences, and thought, in his old age, that his work was 
done. 

But he deceived himself. Corny n and Bruce conspired, 
and made an appointment to meet at Dumfries, in the church 
of the Minorites. There is a story that Corny n was false to 
Bruce, and had informed against him to the King ; that Bruce 
was warned of his danger and the necessity of flight, by re- 
ceiving, one night as he sat at supper, from his friend the 
Earl of Gloucester, twelve pennies and a pair of spurs ; that 
as he was riding angrily to keep his appointment (through a 
snow-storm, with his horse's shoes reversed that he might not 
be tracked), he met an evil-looking serving man, a messenger 
of Comyn, whom he killed, and concealed in whose dress he 
found letters that proved Comyn's treachery. However this 
may be, they were likely enough to quarrel in any case, being 



166 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

hot-headed rivals ; and, whatever they quarrelled about, they 
certainly did quarrel in the church where they met, and Bruce 
drew his dagger and stabbed Corny n, who fell upon the pave- 
ment. When Bruce came out, pale and disturbed, the friends 
who were waiting for him asked what was the matter? " I 
think I have killed Comyn," said he. " You only think so?" 
returned one of them ; " I will make sure ! " and going into 
the church, and finding him alive, stabbed him again and 
again. Knowing that the King would never forgive this new 
deed of violence, the party then declared Bruce King of Scot- 
land : got him crowned at Scone — without the chair ; and 
set up the rebellious standard once again. 

When the King heard of it he kindled with fiercer anger 
than he had ever shown yet. He caused the Prince of Wales 
and two hundred and seventy of the young nobilit}* to be 
knighted — the trees in the Temple Gardens were cut down 
to make room for their tents, and they watched their armor 
all night, according to the old usage : some in the Temple 
Church : some in Westminster Abbe}^ — and at the public 
Feast which then took place, he swore, by Heaven, and by 
two swans covered with gold network which his minstrels 
placed upon the table, that he would avenge the death of 
Comyn, and would punish the false Bruce. And before all 
the compairy, he charged the Prince his son, in case that he 
should die before accomplishing his vow, not to bury him 
until it was fulfilled. Next morning the Prince and the rest 
of the 3 r oung Knights rode awa} T to the Border-countiy to join 
the English army ; and the King, now weak and sick, followed 
in a horse-litter. 

Bruce, after losing a battle and undergoing many dangers 
and much miser} T , fled to Ireland, where he lay concealed 
through the winter. That winter, Edward passed in hunting 
down and executing Bruce' s relations and adherents, sparing 
neither youth nor age, and showing no touch of pity or sign 
of mercy. In the following spring, Bruce reappeared and 
gained some victories. In these frays both sides were griev- 



EDWARD THE FIRST. 167 

ously cruel. For instance — Brace's two brothers, being 
taken captives desperately wounded, were ordered by the 
King to instant execution. Brace's friend Sir John Douglas, 
taking his own Castle of Douglas out of the hands of an 
English Lord, roasted the dead bodies of the slaughtered 
garrison in a great fire made of every movable within it ; 
which dreadful cookeiy his men called the Douglas Larder. 
Bruce, still successful, however, drove the Earl of Pembroke 
and the Earl of Gloucester into the Castle of Ayr and laid 
siege to it. 

The King, who had been laid up all the winter, but had 
directed the army from his sick-bed, now advanced to Car- 
lisle, and there, causing the litter in which he had travelled 
to tfe placed in the Cathedral as an offering to Heaven, 
mounted his horse once more, and for the last time. He 
was now sixty- nine 3-ears old, and had reigned thirty- five 
years. He was so ill, that in four days he could go no more 
than six miles ; still, even at that pace, he went on and reso- 
lutely kept his face towards the Border. At length, he lay 
down at the village of Burgh-upon-Sands ; and there, telling 
those around him to impress upon the Prince that he was to 
remember his father's vow, and was never to rest until he 
had thoroughly subdued Scotland, he yielded up his last 
breath. 



168 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE SECOND. 

King Edward the Second, the first Prince of Wales, was 
twenty-three years old when his father died. There was a 
certain favorite of his, a young man from Gascony, named 
Piers Gaveston, of whom his father had so much disapproved 
that he had ordered him out of England, and had made his 
son swear by the side of his sick-bed, never to bring him 
back. But, the Prince no sooner found himself King, than 
he broke his oath, as so many other Princes and Kings did 
(they were far too ready to take oaths) , and sent for his dear 
friend immediately. 

Now, this same Gaveston was handsome enough, but was 
a reckless, insolent, audacious fellow. He was detested by 
the proud English Lords : not only because he had such power 
over the King, and made the Court such a dissipated place, 
but, also, because he could ride better than they at tourna- 
ments, and was used, in his impudence, to cut very bad jokes 
on them ; calling one, the old hog ; another, the stage-player ; 
another, the Jew ; another, the black dog of Ardenne. This 
was as poor wit as need be, but it made those Lords very 
wroth ; and the surly Earl of Warwick, who was the black 
dog, swore that the time should come when Piers Gaveston 
should feel the black dog's teeth. 

It was not come yet, however, nor did it seem to be com- 
ing. The King made him Earl of Cornwall, and gave him 
vast riches ; and, when the King went over to France to 
marry the French Princess, Isabella, daughter of Philip le 
Bel : who was said to be the most beautiful woman in the 



EDWARD THE SECOND. 169 

world: he made Gaveston, Regent of the Kingdom. His 
splendid marriage-ceremoiry in the Church of our Lad}' at 
Boulogne, where there were four Kings and three Queens 
present (quite a pack of Court Cards, for I dare sa}- the 
Knaves were not wanting), being over, he seemed to care 
little or nothing for his beautiful wife ; but was wild with 
impatience to meet Gaveston again. 

When he landed at home, he paid no attention to an}'body 
else, but ran into the favorite's arms before a great concourse 
of people, and hugged him, and kissed him, and called him 
his brother. At the coronation which soon followed, Gaves- 
ton was the richest and brightest of all the glittering company 
there, and had the honor of carrying the crown. This made 
the proud Lords fiercer than ever ; the people, too, despised 
the favorite, and would never call him Earl of Cornwall, 
however much he complained to the King and asked him to 
punish them for not doing so, but persisted in styling him 
plain Piers Gaveston. 

The Barons were so unceremonious with the King yi giving 
him to understand that the}' would not bear his favorite, that 
the King was obliged to send him out of the country. The 
favorite himself was made to take an oath (more oaths !) that 
he would never come back, and the Barons supposed him to 
be banished in disgrace, until they heard that he was ap- 
pointed Governor of Ireland. Even this was not enough for 
the besotted King, who brought him home again in a }^ear's 
time, and not onty disgusted the Court and the people by his 
doting folly, but offended his beautiful wife too, who never 
liked him afterwards. 

He had now the old Royal want — of monej- — and the 
Barons had the new power of positively refusing to let him 
raise any. He summoned a Parliament at York ; the Barons 
refused to make one, while the favorite was near him. He 
summoned another Parliament at Westminster, and sent 
Gaveston away. Then the Barons came, completely armed, 
and appointed a committee of themselves to correct abuses in 



170 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

the state and in the King's household. He got some money 
on these conditions, and directly set off with Gaveston to the 
Border-country, where they spent it in idling away the time, 
and feasting, while Bruce made ready to drive the English 
out of Scotland. For, though the old King had even made 
this poor weak son of his swear (as some say) that he would 
not bury his bones, but would have them boiled clean in a 
caldron, and carried before the English army until Scotland 
was entirely subdued, the second Edward was so unlike the 
first that Bruce gained strength and power every day. 

The committee of Nobles, after some months of delibera- 
tion, ordained that the King should henceforth call a Parlia- 
ment together, once every year, and even twice if necessary, 
instead of summoning it only when he chose. Further, that 
Gaveston should once more be banished, and, this time, on 
pain of death if he ever came back. The king's tears were 
of no avail ; he was obliged to send his favorite to Flanders. 
As soon as he had done so, however, he dissolved the Par- 
liament, with the low cunning of a mere fool, and set off to 
the North of England, thinking to get an army about him to 
oppose the Nobles. And once again he brought Gaveston 
home, and heaped upon him all the riches and titles of which 
the Barons had deprived him. 

The Lords saw, now, that there was nothing for it but to 
put the favorite to death. They could have done so, legally, 
according to the terms of his banishment ; but they did so, I 
am sony to saj^, in a shabb}' manner. Led by the Earl of 
Lancaster, the King's cousin, they first of all attacked the 
King and Gaveston at Newcastle. They had time to escape 
by sea, and the mean King, having his precious Gaveston 
with him, was quite content to leave his lovely wife behind. 
When they were comparatively safe, they separated ; the 
King went to York to collect a force of soldiers ; and the 
favorite shut himself up, in the meantime, in Scarborough 
Castle overlooking the sea. This was what the Barons 
wanted. They knew that the Castle could not hold out ; 



EDWARD THE SECOND. 171 

the}' attacked it, and made Gaveston surrender. He deliv- 
ered himself up to the Earl of Pembroke — that Lord whom 
he had called the Jew — on the Earl's pledging his faith and 
knightly word, that no harm should happen to him and no 
violence be done him. 

Now, it was agreed with Gaveston that he should be taken 
to the Castle of Wallingford, and there kept in honorable 
custody. The} T travelled as far as Dedington, near Banbun', 
where, in the Castle of that place, they stopped for a night 
to rest. Whether the Earl of Pembroke left his prisoner 
there, knowing what would happen, or really left him think- 
ing no harm, and only going (as he pretended) to visit his 
wife, the Countess, who was in the neighborhood, is no great 
matter now ; in any case, he was bound as an honorable gen- 
tleman to protect his prisoner, and he did not do it. In the 
morning, while the favorite was yet in bed, he was required 
to dress himself and come down into the court-yard. He did 
so without any mistrust, but started and turned pale when he 
found it full of strange armed men. "I think }~ou know 
me?" said their leader, also armed from head to foot. "I 
am the black dog of Ardenne ! " 

The time was come when Piers Gaveston was to feel the 
black dog's teeth indeed. They set him on a mule, and car- 
ried him, in mock state and with military music, to the black 
dog's kennel — Warwick Castle — where a hast}' council, 
composed of some great noblemen, considered what should 
be done with him. Some were for sparing him, but one loud 
voice — it was the black dog's bark, I dare say — sounded 
through the Castle Hall, uttering these words: "You have 
the fox in 3*0111* power. Let him go now, and you must hunt 
him again." 

They sentenced him to death. He threw himself at the 
feet of the Earl of Lancaster — the old hog — but the old 
hog was as savage as the dog. He was taken out upon the 
pleasant road, leading from Warwick to Coventry, where the 
beautiful river Avon, b} T which, long afterwards, William 



172 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Shakespeare was born and now lies buried, sparkled in the 
bright landscape of the beautiful May-day ; and there they 
struck off his wretched head, and stained the dust with his 
blood. 

When the King heard of this black deed, in his grief and 
rage he denounced relentless war against his Barons, and 
both sides were in arms for half a year. But, it then became 
necessary for them to join their forces against Bruce, who 
had used the time well while they were divided, and had 
now a great power in Scotland. 

Intelligence was brought that Bruce was then besieging 
Stirling Castle, and that the Governor had been obliged to 
pledge himself to surrender it, unless he should be relieved 
before a certain clay. Hereupon, the King ordered the 
nobles and their fighting-men to meet him at Berwick ; but, 
the nobles cared so little for the King, and so neglected the 
summons, and lost time, that only on the clay before that 
appointed for the surrender, did the King find himself at 
Stirling, and even then with a smaller force than he had 
expected. However, he had, altogether, a hundred thousand 
men, and Bruce had not more than forty thousand ; but 
Bruce's army was strongly posted in three square columns, 
on the ground lying between the Burn or Brook of Bannock 
and the walls of Stirling Castle. 

On the very evening, when the King came up, Bruce did a 
brave act that encouraged his men. He was seen by a cer- 
tain Henry de Bohun, an English Knight, riding about be- 
fore his army on a little horse, with a light battle-axe in his 
hand, and a crown of gold on his head. This English 
Knight, who was mounted on a strong war-horse, cased in 
steel, strongly armed, and able (as he thought) to overthrow 
Bruce by crushing him with his mere weight, set spurs to his 
great charger, rode on him, and made a thrust at him with 
his heavy spear. Bruce parried the thrust, and with one 
blow of his battle-axe split his skull. 

The Scottish men did not forget this, next day, when the 




SHAKESPEARE'S TOMB, 



EDWARD THE SECOND. 173 

battle raged. Randolph, Brace's valiant Nephew, rode, 
with the small body of men he commanded, into such a host 
of the English, all shining in polished armor in the sunlight, 
that they seemed to be swallowed up and lost, as if they had 
plunged into the sea. But, they fought so well, and did 
such dreadful execution, that the English staggered. Then 
came Bruce himself upon them, with all the rest of his army. 
While they were thus hard pressed and amazed, there ap- 
peared upon the hills what they supposed to be a new Scot- 
tish arm}- , but what were really only the camp followers, in 
number fifteen thousand : whom Bruce had taught to show 
themselves at that place and time. The Earl of Gloucester, 
commanding the English horse, made a last rush to change 
the fortune of the day ; but Bruce (like Jack the Giant-killer 
in the story) had had pits dug in the ground, and covered 
over with turfs and stakes. Into these, as they gave way 
beneath the weight of the horses, riders and horses rolled by 
hundreds. The English were completely routed ; all then- 
treasure, stores, and engines, were taken by the Scottish 
men ; so many wagons and other wheeled vehicles were 
seized, that it is related that they would have reached, if 
they had been drawn out in a line, one hundred and eighty 
miles. The fortunes of Scotland were, for the time, com- 
pletely changed ; and never was a battle won, more famous 
upon Scottish ground, than this great battle of Bannockburn. 

Plague and famine succeeded in England ; and still the 
powerless king and his disdainful Lords were always in con- 
tention. Some of the turbulent chiefs of Ireland made pro- 
posals to Bruce to accept the rule of that country. He sent 
his brother Edward to them, who was crowned King of Ire- 
land. He afterwards went himself to help his brother in his 
Irish wars, but his brother was defeated in the end and 
killed. Robert Bruce, returning to Scotland, still increased 
his strength there. 

As the King's ruin had begun in a favorite, so it seemed 
likety to end in one. He was too poor a creature to rely at 



174 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

all upon himself; and his new favorite was one Hugh le 
Despenser, the son of a gentleman of ancient family. Hugh 
was handsome and brave, but he was the favorite of a weak 
King, whom no man cared a rush for, and that was a dan- 
gerous place to hold. The Nobles leagued against him, be- 
cause the King liked him ; and they lay in wait, both for his 
ruin and his father's. Now, the King had married him to the 
daughter of the late Earl of Gloucester, and had given both 
him and his father great possessions in Wales. In their 
endeavors to extend these, they gave violent offence to an 
angry Welsh gentleman, named John de Mowbray, and to 
divers other angry Welsh gentlemen, who resorted to arms, 
took their castles, and seized their estates. The Earl of 
Lancaster had first placed the favorite (who was a poor rela- 
tion of his own) at Court, and he considered his own dignity 
offended by the preference he received and the honors he 
acquired ; so he, and the Barons who were his friends, joined 
the Welshmen, marched on London, and sent a message to 
the King demanding to have the favorite and his father ban- 
ished. At first the King unaccountably took it into his head 
to be spirited, and to send them a bold reply ; but when they 
quartered themselves around Holborn and Clerkenwell, and 
went down, armed, to the Parliament at Westminster, he 
gave way, and complied with their demands. 

His turn of triumph came sooner than he expected. It 
arose out of an accidental circumstance. The beautiful 
Queen happening to be travelling, came one night to one of 
the royal castles, and demanded to be lodged and entertained 
there until morning. The governor of this castle, who was 
one of the enraged lords, was away, and in his absence, his 
wife refused admission to the Queen ; a scuffle took place 
among the common men on either side, and some of the roj-al 
attendants were killed. The people, who cared nothing for 
the King, were very angry that their beautiful Queen should 
be thus rudely treated in her own dominions ; and the King, 
taking advantage of this feeling, besieged the castle, took it. 



EDWARD THE SECOND. 175 

and then called the two Despensers home. Upon this, the 
confederate lords and the Welshmen went over to Bruce. 
The King encountered them at Boroughbridge, gained the 
victor} T , and took a number of distinguished prisoners ; among 
them the Earl of Lancaster, now an old man, upon whose 
destruction he was resolved. This Earl was taken to his 
own castle of Pontefract, and there tried and found guilt} 7 by 
an unfair court appointed for the purpose ; he was not even 
allowed to speak in his own defence. He was insulted, 
pelted, mounted on a starved pony without saddle or bridle, 
carried out, and beheaded. Eight-and-twenty knights were 
hanged, drawn, and quartered. When the King had de- 
spatched this bloody work, and had made a fresh and a long 
truce with Bruce, he took the Despensers into greater favor 
than ever, and made the father Earl of Winchester. 

One prisoner, and an important one, who was taken at 
Boroughbridge, made his escape, however, and turned the 
tide against the King. This was Roger Mortimer, alwa^ys 
resolutely opposed to him, who was sentenced to death, and 
placed for safe custod}^ in the Tower of London. He treated 
his guards to a quantity of wine into which he had put a 
sleeping potion ; and when they were insensible, broke out of 
his dungeon, got into a kitchen, climbed up the chimne} 7 , let 
himself down from the roof of the building with a rope-ladder, 
passed the sentries, got down to the river, and made away in 
a boat to where servants and horses were waiting for him. 
He finally escaped to France, where Charles le Bel, the 
brother of the beautiful Queen, was King. Charles sought to 
quarrel with the King of England, on pretence of his not 
having come to do him homage at his coronation. It was 
proposed that the beautiful Queen should go over to arrange 
the dispute ; she went, and wrote home to the King, that as 
he was sick, and could not come to France himself, perhaps 
it would be better to send over the young Prince, their son, 
who was only twelve 3<ears old, who could do homage to her 
brother in his stead, and in whose company she would imme- 



176 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

diately return. The King sent him : but, both he and the 
Queen remained at the French Court, and Roger Mortimer 
became the Queen's lover. 

When the King wrote, again and again, to the Queen to 
come home, she did not reply that she despised him too much 
to live with him any more (which was the truth) , but said 
she was afraid of the two Despensers. In short, her design 
was to overthrow the favorites' power, and the King's power, 
such as it was, and invade England. Having obtained a 
French force of two thousand men, and being joined 03^ all 
the English exiles then in France, she landed, within a year, 
at Orewell, in Suffolk, where she was immediately joined by 
the Earls of Kent and Norfolk, the King's two brothers ; by 
other powerful noblemen ; and lastly, by the first English 
general who was despatched to check her : who went over to 
her with all his men. The people of London, receiving these 
tidings, would do nothing for the King, but broke open the 
Tower, let out all his prisoners, and threw up their caps and 
hurrahed for the beautiful Queen. 

The King, with his two favorites, fled to Bristol, where he 
left old Despenser in charge of the town and castle, while 
he went on with the son to Wales. The Bristol men being 
opposed to the King, and it being impossible to hold the town 
with enemies everywhere within the walls, Despenser 3 T ielded 
it up on the third day, and was instantly brought to trial for 
having traitorously influenced what was called ' ' the King's 
mind " — though I doubt if the King ever had any. He was 
a venerable old man, upwards of ninety years of age, but his 
age gained no respect or mercy. He was hanged, torn open 
while he was yet alive, cut up into pieces, and thrown to the 
dogs. His son was soon taken, tried at Hereford before the 
same judge on a long series of foolish charges, found guilty, 
and hanged upon a gallows fifty feet high, with a chaplet of 
nettles round his head. His poor old father and he were in- 
nocent enough of any worse crimes than the crime of having 
been friends of a King, on whom, as a mere man, they would 



EDWARD' THE SECOND. 177 

never have deigned to cast a favorable look. It is a bad 
crime, I know, and leads to worse ; but, many lords and gen- 
tlemen — I even think some ladies, too, if I recollect right — 
have committed it in England, who have neither been given 
to the dogs, nor hanged up fifty feet high. 

The wretched King was running here and there, all this 
time, and never getting an}'where in particular, until he gave 
himself up, and was taken off to Kenilworth Castle. When 
he was safely lodged there, the Queen went to London and 
met the Parliament. And the Bishop of Hereford, who was 
the most skilful of her friends, said, What was to be done 
now? Here was an imbecile, indolent, miserable King upon 
the throne ; wouldn't it be better to take him off, and put his 
son there instead ? I don't know whether the Queen realty 
pitied him at this pass, but she began to cry ; so, the Bishop 
said, Well, my Lords and Gentlemen, what do } t ou think, 
upon the whole, of sending down to Kenilworth, and seeing if 
His Majest}' (God bless him, and forbid we should depose 
him !) won't resign? 

My Lords and Gentlemen thought it a good notion, so a 
deputation of them went down to Kenilworth ; and there the 
King came into the great hall of the Castle, commonry dressed 
in a poor black gown ; and w T hen he saw a certain bishop 
among them, fell down, poor feeble-headed man, and made a 
wretched spectacle of himself. Somebody lifted him up, and 
then Sir William Trussel, the Speaker of the House of 
Commons, almost frightened him to death bj T making him a 
tremendous speech to the effect that he was no longer a King, 
and that everybocty renounced allegiance to him. After 
which, Sir Thomas Blount, the Steward of the Household, 
nearly finished him, b}^ coming forward and breaking his 
white wand — which was a ceremony onty performed at a 
King's death. Being asked in this pressing manner what he 
thought of resigning, the King said he thought it was the 
best thing he could do. So he did it, and they proclaimed 
his son next day. 

12 



178 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

I wish I could close his history by sa3'ing that he lived a 
harmless life in the Castle and the Castle gardens at Kenil- 
worth many } r ears — that he had a favorite, and plenty to eat 
and drink — and, having that, wanted nothing. But he was 
shamefully humiliated. He was outraged, and slighted, and 
had dirt} r water from ditches given him to shave with, and 
wept and said he would have clean warm water, and was al- 
together very miserable. He was moved from this castle to 
that castle, and from that castle to the other castle, because 
this lord or that lord, or the other lord, was too kind to him : 
until at last he came to Berkeley Castle, near the River Sev- 
ern, where (the Lord Berkele}' being then ill and absent) he 
fell into the hands of two black ruffians, called Thomas 
Gournay and William Ogle. 

One night — it was the night of September the twent} r -first, 
one thousand three hundred and twent} r -seven — dreadful 
screams were heard, by the startled people in the neighboring 
town, ringing through the thick walls of the Castle, and the 
dark deep night ; and they said, as they were thus horribly 
awakened from their sleep, " May Heaven be merciful to the 
King ; for those cries forebode that no good is being done to 
him in his dismal prison ! " Next morning he was dead — 
not bruised, or stabbed, or marked upon the bod} T , but much 
distorted in the face ; and it was whispered afterwards, that 
those two villains, Gournay and Ogle, had burned up his in- 
side with a red-hot iron. 

If you ever come near Gloucester, and see the centre tower 
of its beautiful Cathedral, with its four rich pinnacles, rising 
lightly in the air, you may remember that the wretched Ed- 
ward the Second was buried in the old abbey of that ancient 
city, at forty-three years old, after being for nineteen } T ears 
and a half a perfectly incapable King. 



EDWARD THE THIRD. 179 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE THIRD. 

Roger Mortimer, the Queen's lover (who escaped to 
France in the last chapter), was far from profiting by the 
examples he had had of the fate of favorites. Having, 
through the Queen's influence, come into possession of the 
estates of the two Despensers, he became extremely proud 
and ambitious, and sought to be the real ruler of England. 
The 3'oung King, who was crowned at fourteen years of age 
with all the usual solemnities, resolved not to bear this, and 
soon pursued Mortimer to his ruin. 

The people themselves were not fond of Mortimer — first, 
because he was a royal favorite ; secondly, because he was 
supposed to have helped to make a peace with Scotland 
which now took place, and in virtue of which the }~oung 
King's sister Joan, only seven years old, was promised in 
marriage to David, the son and heir of Robert Bruce, who 
was only five years old. The nobles hated Mortimer because 
of his pride, riches, and power. They went so far as to 
take up arms against him : but were obliged to submit. The 
Earl of Kent, one of those who did so, but who afterwards 
went over to Mortimer and the Queen, was made an exam- 
ple of in the following cruel manner : — 

He seems to have been anything but a wise old earl ; and 
he was persuaded by the agents of the favorite and the Queen, 
that poor King Edward the Second was not really dead ; and 
thus was betrayed into writing letters favoring his rightful 
claim to the throne. This was made out to be high treason, 
and he was tried, found guihYv, and sentenced to be executed. 



180 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Tliej^ took the poor old lord outside the town of Winchester, 
and there kept him waiting some three or four hours until 
they could find somebody to cut off his head. At last, a 
convict said he would do it, if the government would pardon 
him in return ; and they gave him the pardon ; and at one 
blow he put the Earl of Kent out of his last suspense. 

While the Queen was in France, she had found a lovely 
and good young lad}', named Philippa, who she thought 
would make an excellent wife for her son. The young King 
married this lady, soon after he came to the throne ; and her 
first child Edward, Prince of Wales, afterwards became cele- 
brated, as we shall presently see, under the famous title of 
Edward the Black Prince. 

The young King, thinking the time ripe for the downfall 
of Mortimer, took counsel with Lord Montacute how he 
should proceed. A Parliament was going to be held at 
Nottingham, and that lord recommended that the favorite 
should be seized by night in Nottingham Castle, where he 
was sure to be. Now this, like many other things, was 
more easily said than done ; because to guard against treach- 
ery, the great gates of the Castle were locked every night, 
and the great ke}'s were carried up-stairs to the Queen, who 
laid them under her own pillow. But the Castle had a gov- 
ernor, and the governor being Lord Montacute's friend, con- 
fided to him how he knew of a secret passage under-ground, 
hidden from observation by the weeds and brambles with which 
it was overgrown ; and how, through that passage, the conspir- 
ators might enter in the dead of the night, and go straight 
to Mortimer's room. Accordingly, upon a certain dark night, 
at midnight, they made their way through this dismal place : 
startling the rats, and frightening the owls and bats : and 
came safely to the bottom of the main tower of the Castle, 
where the King met them, and took them up a profoundly- 
dark staircase in a deep silence. They soon heard the voice 
of Mortimer in council with some friends ; and bursting into 
the room with a sudden noise, took him prisoner. The Queen 



EDWARD THE THIRD. 181 

cried out from her bed-chamber, "Oh, my sweet son, my 
dear son, spare my gentle Mortimer ! " They carried him 
off, however ; and, before the next Parliament, accused him 
of having made differences between the } T oung King and his 
mother, and of having brought about the death of the Earl 
of Kent, and even of the late King ; for, as you know by this 
time, when they wanted to get rid of a man in those old 
days, they were not very particular of what they accused 
him. Mortimer was found guilty of all this, and was sen- 
tenced to be hanged at Tyburn. The King shut his mother 
up in genteel confinement, where she passed the rest of her 
life ; and now he became King in earnest. 

The first effort he made was to conquer Scotland. The 
English lords who had lands in Scotland, finding that their 
rights were not respected under the late peace, made war on 
their own account : choosing for their general, Edward, the 
son of John Baliol, who made such a vigorous fight, that in 
less than two months he won the whole Scottish Kingdom. 
He was joined, when thus triumphant, by the King and Par- 
liament ; and he and the King in person besieged the Scot- 
tish forces in Berwick. The whole Scottish army coming 
to the assistance of their countiymen, such a furious battle 
ensued, that thirtyy thousand men are said to have been killed 
in it. Baliol was then crowned King of Scotland, doing 
homage to the King of England ; but little came of his suc- 
cesses after all, for the Scottish men rose against him, within 
no very long time, and David Bruce came back within ten 
years and took his kingdom. 

France was a far richer country than Scotland, and the 
King had a much greater mind to conquer it. So, he let 
Scotland alone, and pretended that he had a claim to the 
French throne in right of his mother. He had, in realit}', no 
claim at all ; but that mattered little in those times. He 
brought over to his cause many little princes and sovereigns, 
and even courted the alliance of the people of Flanders — a 
busy, working community, who had very small respect for 



182 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

kings, and whose head man was a brewer. With such forces 
as he raised by these means, Edward invaded France ; but 
he did little by that, except run into debt in carrying on the 
war to the extent of three hundred thousand pounds. The 
next year he did better; gaining a great sea-fight in the 
harbor of Sluys. This success, however, was very short- 
lived, for the Flemings took fright at the siege of Saint Omer 
and ran away, leaving their weapons and baggage behind 
them. Philip, the French King, coming up with his army, 
and Edward being ver}' anxious to decide the war, proposed 
to settle the difference by single combat with him, or by a 
fight of one hundred knights on each side. The French King 
said, he thanked him ; but being very well as he was, he 
would rather not. So, after some skirmishing and talking, 
a short peace was made. 

It was soon broken by King Edward's favoring the cause 
of John, Earl of Montford ; a French nobleman, who assert- 
ed a claim of his own against the French King, and offered 
to do homage to England for the Crown of France, if he 
could obtain it through England's help. This French lord, 
himself, was soon defeated by the French King's son, and 
shut up in a tower in Paris ; but his wife, a courageous and 
beautiful woman, who is said to have had the courage of a 
man, and the heart of a lion, assembled the people of Brit- 
tany, where she then was ; and, showing them her infant 
son, made many pathetic entreaties to them not to desert 
her and their young Lord. They took fire at this appeal, and 
rallied round her in the strong castle of Hennebon. Here 
she was not only besieged without by the French under 
Charles de Blois, but was endangered within by a dreary old 
bishop, who was alwa}^s representing to the people what 
horrors they must undergo if they were faithful — first from 
famine, and afterwards from fire and sw r ord. But this noble 
lady, whose heart never failed her, encouraged her soldiers 
b}' her own example ; went from post to post like a great 
general ; even mounted on horseback fully armed, and, issu- 



EDWARD THE THIRD. 183 

ing from the castle by a bj^-path, fell upon the French camp, 
set fire to the tents, and threw the whole force into disorder. 
This done, she got safely back to Hennebon again, and was 
received with loud shouts of joy by the defenders of the 
castle, who had given her up for lost. As they were now 
very short of provisions, however, and as they could not 
dine off enthusiasm, and as the old bishop was always sa}- 
ing, ' ' I told you what it would come to ! " they began to 
lose heart, and to talk of yielding the castle up. The brave 
Countess retiring to an upper room and looking with 
great grief out to sea, where she expected relief from Eng- 
land, saw, atthisveiy time, the English ships in the distance, 
and was relieved and rescued ! Sir Walter Manning, the 
English commander, so admired her courage, that, being come 
into the castle with the English knights, and having made a 
feast there, he assaulted the French, by way of dessert, and 
beat them off triumphantly. Then he and the knights came 
back to the castle with great joy ; and the Countess who 
had watched them from a high tower, thanked them with all 
her heart, and kissed them eveiy one. ' 

This noble lady distinguished herself afterwards in a sea- 
fight w r ith the French off Guernse\', when she was on her wa}' 
to England to ask for more troops. Her great spirit roused 
another lady, the wife of another French lord (whom the 
French King very barbarously murdered) , to distinguish her- 
self scarcely less. The time was fast coming, however, when 
Edward, Prince of Wales, was to be the great star of this 
French and English war. 

It was in the month of July, in the year one thousand 
three hundred and forty-six, when the King embarked at 
Southampton for France, with an arm}' of about thiity thou- 
sand men in all, attended by the Prince of Wales and by 
several of the chief nobles. He landed at La Hogue in 
Normaixty ; and, burning and destroying as he went, accord- 
ing to custom, advanced up the left bank of the River Seine, 
and fired the small towns even close to Paris ; but, being 



184 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

watched from the right bank of the river by the French King 
and all his arm}', it came to this at last, that Edward found 
himself, on Saturda} 7 the twenty-sixth of August, one thou- 
sand three hundred and forty-six, on a rising ground behind 
the little French village of Crecy, face to face with the 
French King's force. And, although the French King had 
an enormous army — in number more than eight times his — 
he there resolved to beat him or be beaten. 

The young Prince, assisted by the Earl of Oxford and the 
Earl of Warwick, led the first division of the English army ; 
two other great Earls led the second ; and the King, the third. 
When the morning dawned, the King received the sacrament, 
and heard prayers, and then, mounted on horseback with a 
white wand in his hand, rode from company to company, and 
rank to rank, cheering and encouraging both officers and men. 
Then the whole army breakfasted, each man sitting on the 
ground where he had stood ; and then they remained quietly 
on the ground with their weapons ready. 

Up came the French King with all his great force. It was 
dark and angr} 7 weather ; there was an eclipse of the sun ; 
there was a thunder-storm, accompanied with tremendous 
rain ; the frightened birds flew screaming above the soldiers' 
heads. A certain captain in the French army advised the 
French King, who was by no means cheerful, not to begin 
the battle until the morrow. The King, taking this advice, 
gave the word to halt. But, /those behind not understanding 
it, or desiring to be foremost with the rest, came pressing on. 
The roads for a great distance were covered with this immense 
army, and with the common people from the villages, who 
were flourishing their rude weapons, and making a great noise. 
Owing to these circumstances, the French army advanced in 
the greatest confusion ; every French lord doing what he liked 
with his own men, and putting out the men of every other 
French lord. 

Now, their King relied strongly upon a great body of cross- 
bowmen from Genoa ; and these he ordered to the front to 



EDWARD THE THIRD. 185 

begin the battle, on finding that he could not stop it. They 
shouted once, they shouted twice, the} r shouted three times, to 
alarm the English archers ; but, the English would have 
heard them shout three thousand times and would have never 
moved. At last the cross-bowmen went forward a little, and 
began to discharge their bolts ; upon which, the English let fly 
such a hail of arrows, that the Genoese speedily made off — for 
their cross-bows, besides being heavy to cany, required to be 
wound up with a handle, and consequently took time to re- 
load ; the English, on the other hand, could discharge their 
arrows almost as fast as the arrows could fly. 

When the French King saw the Genoese turning, he cried 
out, to his men to kill those scoundrels, who were doing harm 
instead of service. This increased the confusion. Meanwhile 
the English archers, continuing to shoot as fast as ever, shot 
down great numbers of the French soldiers and knights ; 
whom certain sly Cornishmen and Welshmen, from the Eng- 
lish army, creeping along the ground, despatched with great 
knives. 

The Prince and his division were at this time so hard- 
pressed, that the Earl of Warwick sent a message to the King, 
who was overlooking the battle from a windmill, beseeching 
him to send more aid. 

" Is my son killed? " said the King. 

44 No, sire, please God," returned the messenger. 

44 Is he wounded? " said the King. 

44 No, sire." 

44 Is he thrown to the ground ?" said the King. 

44 No, sire, not so ; but, he is very hard-pressed." 

44 Then," said the King, 44 go back to those who sent you, 
and tell them I shall send no aid ; because I set my heart upon 
my son proving himself this day a brave knight, and because 
I am resolved, please God, that the honor of a great victory 
shall be his ! " 

These bold words, being reported to the Prince and his di- 
vision, so raised their spirits, that they fought better than ever. 



186 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

The King of France charged gallantly with his men many 
times ; but it was of no use. Night closing in, his horse was 
killed under him b}>- an English arrow, and the knights and 
nobles wh had clustered thick about him early in the da}', 
were now completely scattered. At last some of his few 
remaining followers led him off the field by force, since he 
would not retire of himself, and they journeyed away to Ami- 
ens. The victorious English, lighting their watch-fires, made 
merry on the field, and the King, riding to meet his gallant 
son, took him in his arms, kissed him, and told him that he 
had acted nobly, and proved himself worthy of the da} r and of 
the crown. While it was yet night, King Edward was hardly 
aware of the great victory he had gained ; but, next clay, it was 
discovered that eleven princes, twelve hundred knights, and 
thirty thousand common men lay dead upon the French side. 
Among these was the King of Bohemia, an old blind man ; 
who, having been told that his son was wounded in the battle, 
and that no force could stand against the Black Prince , called 
to him two knights, put himself on horseback between them, 
fastened the three bridles together, and dashed in among the 
English, where he was presently slain. He bore as his crest 
three white ostrich feathers, with the motto Ich dien, signify- 
ing in English " I serve." This crest and motto were taken 
by the Prince of Wales in remembrance of that famous da} r , 
and have been borne by the Prince of Wales ever since. 

Five days after this great battle, the King laid siege to 
Calais. This siege — ever afterwards memorable — lasted 
nearly a year. In order to starve the inhabitants out, King 
Edward built so many wooden houses for the lodgings of his 
troops, that it is said their quarters looked like a second 
Calais suddenly sprung up around the first. Early in the 
siege, the governor of the town drove out what he called the 
useless mouths, to the number of seventeen hundred persons, 
men and women, young and old. King Edward allowed 
them to pass through his lines, and even fed them, and dis- 
missed them with money ; but, later in the siege, he was not 



EDWARD THE THIRD. 187 

so merciful — five hundred more, who were afterwards driven 
out, dying of starvation and miser}^. The garrison were so 
hard-pressed at last, that they sent a letter to King Philip, 
telling him that they had eaten all the horses, all the dogs, 
and all the rats and mice that could be found in the place ; 
and, that if he did not relieve them, they must either surren- 
der to the English, or eat one another. Philip made one 
effort to give them relief; but they were so hemmed in by the 
English power, that he could not succeed, and was fain to 
leave the place. Upon this they hoisted the English flag, and 
surrendered to King Edward. " Tell your general," said he 
to the humble messengers who came out of the town, " that 
I require to have sent here, six of the most distinguished cit- 
izens, bare-legged, and in their shirts, with ropes about their 
necks ; and let those six men bring with them the ke} T s of 
the castle and the town." 

When the Governor of Calais related this to the people in 
the Market-place, there was great weeping and distress ; in 
the midst of which, one worthy citizen, named Eustace de 
Saint Pierre, rose up and said, that if the six men required 
were not sacrificed, the whole population would be ; therefore 
he offered himself as the first. Encouraged by this bright 
example, five other worthy citizens rose up one after another, 
and offered themselves to save the rest. The Governor, who 
was too badly wounded to be able to walk, mounted a poor 
old horse that had not been eaten, and conducted these good 
men to the gate, while all the people cried and mourned. 

Edward received them wrathfully, and ordered the heads 
of the whole six to be struck off. However, the good Queen 
fell upon her knees, and besought the King to give them up 
to her. The King replied, " I wish } 7 ou had been somewhere 
else ; but I cannot refuse you." So she had them properly 
dressed, made a feast for them, and sent them back with a 
handsome present, to the great rejoicing of the whole camp. 
I hope the people of Calais loved the daughter to whom she 
gave birth soon afterwards, for her gentle mother's sake. 



188 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Now came that terrible disease, the Plague, into Europe, 
hurrying from the heart of China ; and killed the wretched 
people — especially the poor — in such enormous numbers, 
that one-half of the inhabitants of England are related to have 
died of it. It killed the cattle, in great numbers, too ; and 
so few working men remained alive, that there were not 
enough left to till the ground. 

After eight years of differing and quarrelling, the Prince 
of Wales again invaded France with an army of sixty thou- 
sand men. He went through the south of the county, burn- 
ing and plundering wheresoever he went; while his father, 
who had still the Scottish war upon his hands, did the like in 
Scotland, but was harassed and worried in his retreat from 
that country by the Scottish men, who repaid his cruelties 
with interest. 

The French King, Philip, was now dead, and was suc- 
ceeded by his son John. The Black Prince, called by that 
name from the color of the armor he wore to set off his fair 
complexion, continuing to burn and destroy in France, roused 
John into determined opposition ; and so cruel had the Black 
Prince been in his campaign, and so severely had the French 
peasants suffered, that he could not find one who, for love, 
or money, or the fear of death, would tell him what the 
French King was doing, or where he was. Thus it happened 
that he came upon the French King's forces, all of a sudden, 
near the town of Poitiers, and found that the whole neigh- 
boring country was occupied by a vast French army. "God 
help us ! " said the Black Prince, " we must make the best 
of it." 

So, on a Sunday morning, the eighteenth of September, 
the Prince — whose army was now reduced to ten thousand 
men in all — prepared to give battle to the French King, 
who had sixty thousand horse alone. While he was so en- 
gaged, there came riding from the French camp, a Cardinal, 
who had persuaded John to let him offer terms, and try to 
save the shedding of Christian blood. " Save my honor," 



EDWARD THE THIRD. 189 

said the Prince to this good priest, " and save the honor of 
ni} T army, and I will make any reasonable terms." He offered 
to give up all the towns, castles, and prisoners, he had taken, 
and to swear to make no war in France for seven } T ears ; but, 
as John would hear of nothing but his surrender, with a hun- 
dred of his chief knights, the treaty was broken off, and the 
Prince said quietly — ' k God defend the right; we shall fight 
to-morrow." 

Therefore, on the Monday morning, at break of day, the 
two armies prepared for battle. The English were posted in 
a strong place, which could only be approached b} T one narrow 
lane, skirted by hedges on both sides. The French attacked 
them by this lane ; but were so galled and slain b} T English 
arrows from behind the hedges, that they were forced to 
retreat. Then went six hundred English bowmen round 
about, and, coming upon the rear of the French arm}', rained 
arrows on them thick and fast. The French knights, thrown 
into confusion, quitted their banners and dispersed in all 
directions. Said Sir John Chandos to the Prince, "Ride 
forward, noble Prince, and the day is yours. The King of 
France is so valiant a gentleman, that I know he will never 
fly, and may be taken prisoner." Said the Prince to this, 
" Advance, English banners, in the name of God and St. 
George ! " and on they pressed until the}' came up with the 
French King, fighting fiercely with his battle-axe, and, when 
all his nobles had forsaken him, attended faithfully to the 
last b}' his youngest son Philip, onry sixteen years of age. 
Father and son fought well, and the King had already two 
wounds in his face, and had been beaten down, when 
he at last delivered himself to a banished French knight, 
and gave him his right-hand glove in token that he had 
done so. 

The Black Prince was generous as well as brave, and he 
invited his royal prisoner to supper in his tent, and waited 
upon him at table, and, when the}' afterwards rode into Lon- 
don in a gorgeous procession, mounted the French King on a 



190 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

fine cream-colored horse, and rode at his side on a little pony. 
This was all very kind, but I think it was, perhaps, a little 
theatrical too, and has been made more meritorious than it 
deserved to be ; especially as I am inclined to think that the 
greatest kindness to the King of France would have been not 
to have shown him to the people at all. However, it must 
be said, for these acts of politeness, that, in course of time, 
they did much to soften the horrors of war and the passions 
of conquerors. It was a long, long time before the common 
soldiers began to have the benefit of such courtly deeds ; but 
they did at last ; and thus it is possible that a poor soldier 
who asked for quarter at the battle of Waterloo, or any other 
such great fight, may have owed his life indirectly to Edward 
the Black Prince. 

At this time there stood in the Strand, in London, a palace 
called the Savoy, which was given up to the captive King of 
France and his son for their residence. As the King of Scot- 
land had now been King Edward's captive for eleven years 
too, his success was, at this time, tolerably complete. The 
Scottish business was settled by the prisoner being released 
under the title of Sir David, King of Scotland, and by his 
engaging to pay a large ransom. The state of France en- 
couraged England to propose harder terms to that country, 
where the people rose against the unspeakable cruelty and 
barbarity of its nobles ; where the nobles rose in turn against 
the people ; where the most frightful outrages were committed 
on all sides ; and where the insurrection of the peasants, 
called the insurrection of the Jacquerie, from Jacques, a com- 
mon Christian name among the country people of France, 
awakened terrors and hatreds that have scarcely yet passed 
away. A treaty called the Great Peace, was at last signed, 
under which King Edward agreed to give up the greater part 
of his conquests, and King John to pay, within six years, a 
ransom of three million crowns of gold. He was so beset by 
his own nobles and courtiers for having yielded to these con- 
ditions — though they could help him to no better — that he 




DEATH OF EDWARD III. 



EDWARD THE THIRD. 101 

came back of his own will to his old palace-prison of the 
Savo} 7 , and there died. 

There was a Sovereign of Castile at that time, called Pedro 
the Cruel, who deserved the name remarkably well : having 
committed, among other cruelties, a variety of murders. 
This amiable monarch being driven from his throne for his 
crimes, went to the province of Bordeaux, where the Black 
Prince — now married to his cousin Joan, a pretty widow — 
was residing, and besought his help. The Prince, who took 
to him much more kindly than a prince of such fame ought 
to have taken to such a ruffian, readily listened to his fair 
promises, and agreeing to help him, sent secret orders to 
sonve troublesome disbanded soldiers of his and his father's, 
who called themselves the Free Companions, and who had 
been a pest to the French people, for some time, to aid this 
Pedro. The Prince, himself, going into Spain to head the 
army of relief, soon set Pedro on his throne again — where 
he no sooner found himself, than, of course, he behaved like 
the villain he was, broke his word without the least shame, 
and abandoned all the promises he had made to the Black 
Prince. 

Now, it had cost the Prince a good deal of mone} T to pay 
soldiers to support this murderous King ; and finding himself, 
when he came back disgusted to Bordeaux, not only in bad 
health, but deeply in debt, he began to tax his French sub- 
jects to pay his creditors. They appealed to the French King, 
Charles ; war again broke out ; and the French town of 
Limoges, which the Prince had greatly benefited, went over 
to the French King. Upon this he ravaged the province of 
which it was the capital ; burnt, and plundered, and killed in 
the old sickening way ; and refused mercy to the prisoners, 
men, women, and children taken in the offending town, 
though he was so ill and so much in need of pity himself from 
Heaven, that he was carried in a litter. He lived to come 
home and make himself popular with the people and Parlia- 
ment, and he died on Trinity Sunday, the eighth of June, one 



192 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

thousand three hundred and seventj'-six, at forty-six years 
old. 

The whole nation mourned for him as one of the most re- 
nowned and beloved princes it had ever had ; and he was 
buried with great lamentations in Canterbury Cathedral. 
Near to the tomb of Edward the Confessor, his monument, 
with his figure, carved in stone, and represented in the old 
black armor, lying on its back, may be seen at this day, with 
an ancient coat of mail, a helmet, and a pair of gauntlets 
hanging from a beam above it, which most people like to 
believe were once worn b}^ the Black Prince. 

King Edward did not outlive his renowned son, long. He 
was old, and one Alice Perrers, a beautiful lady, had con- 
trived to make him so fond of her in his old age, that he could 
refuse her nothing, and made himself ridiculous. She little 
deserved his love, or — what I dare sa} T she valued a great 
deal more — the jewels of the late Queen, which he gave 
her among other rich presents. She took the ver}^ ring 
from his finger on the morning of the day when he died, 
and left him to be pillaged by his faithless servants. Only 
one good priest was true to him, and attended him to the 
last. 

Besides being famous for the great victories I have related, 
the reign of King Edward the Third was rendered memorable 
in better ways, b}' the growth of architecture and the erection 
of Windsor Castle. In better ways still, by the rising up of 
Wickliffe, originally a poor parish priest : who devoted 
himself to exposing, with wonderful power and success, the 
ambition and corruption of the Pope, and of the whole church 
of which he was the head. 

Some of those Flemings were induced to come to England in 
this reign too, and to settle in Norfolk, where thej^ made bet- 
ter woollen cloths than the English had ever had before. The 
Order of the Garter (a very fine thing in its way, but hardly 
so important as good clothes for the nation) also dates from 
this period. The King is said to have picked up a lady's 



EDWARD THE THIKD. 193 

garter at a ball, and to have said Honi soit qui mal y pense 

in English "Evil be to him who evil thinks of it." The 
courtiers were usually glad to imitate what the King said or 
did, and hence from a slight incident the Order of the Garter 
was instituted, and became a great dignity. So the story 
goes. 



194 A CHILD'S HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE SECOND. 

Richard, son of the Black Prince, a boy eleven years of 
age, succeeded to the Crown under the title of King Richard 
the Second. The whole English nation were ready to admire 
him for the sake of his brave father. As to the lords and 
ladies about the Court, thej' declared him to be the most 
beautiful, the wisest, and the best — even of princes — whom 
the lords and ladies about the Court, generally declare to be 
the most beautiful, the wisest, and the best of mankind. To 
flatter a poor boy in this base manner was not a very likely 
way to develop whatever good was in him ; and it brought 
him to anything but a good or happy end. 

The Duke of Lancaster, the young King's uncle — com- 
monly called John of Gaunt, from having been born at Ghent, 
which the common people so pronounced — was supposed to 
have some thoughts of the throne himself; but, as he was 
not popular, and the memory of the Black Prince was, he 
submitted to his nephew. 

The war with France being still unsettled, the Government 
of England wanted money to provide for the expenses that 
might arise out of it ; accordingly a certain tax, called the 
Poll-tax, which had originated in the last reign, was ordered 
to be levied on the people. This was a tax on every person 
in the kingdom, male and female, above the age of fourteen, 
of three groats (or three fourpenny pieces) a } T ear ; clergy- 
men were charged more, and only beggars were exempt. 

I have no need to repeat that the common people of Eng- 
land had long been suffering under great oppression. They 



RICHARD THE SECOND. 195 

were still the mere slaves of the lords of the land on which 
they lived, and were on most occasions harshly and unjustly 
treated. But, they had begun by this time to think very 
seriously of not bearing quite so much ; and, probably, were 
emboldened by that French insurrection I mentioned in the 
last chapter. 

The people of Essex rose against the Poll-tax, and being 
severely handled by the government officers,' killed some of 
them. At this very time one of the tax-collectors, going his 
rounds from house to house, at Dartford in Kent came to the 
cottage of one Wat, a tiler by trade, and claimed the tax 
upon his daughter. Her mother, who was at home, declared 
that she was under the age of fourteen ; upon that, the col- 
lector (as other collectors had already done in different parts 
of England) behaved in a savage way, and brutally insulted 
Wat Tyler's daughter. The daughter screamed, the mother 
screamed. Wat the Tiler, who was at work not far off, ran 
to the spot, and did what any honest father under such pro- 
vocation might have done — struck the collector dead at a 
blow. 

Instantly the people of that town uprose as one man. 
They made Wat Tyler their leader ; they joined with the 
people of Essex, who were in arms under a priest called 
Jack Straw ; they took out of prison another priest named 
John Ball ; and gathering in numbers as they went along, 
advanced, in a great confused army of poor men, to Black- 
heath. It is said that they wanted to abolish all property, 
and to declare all men equal. I do not think this very likely ; 
because they stopped the travellers on the roads and made 
them swear to be true to King Richard and the people. Nor 
were they at all disposed to injure those who had done them 
no harm, merely because they were of high station ; for, the 
King's mother, who had to pass through their camp at Black- 
heath, on her way to her young son, lying for safety in the 
Tower of London, had merely to kiss a few dirty-faced rough- 
bearded men who were noisily fond of royalty, and so got 



196 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

away in perfect safety. Next day the whole mass marched 
on to London Bridge. 

There was a drawbridge in the middle, which William 
Walworth the Mayor caused to be raised to prevent their 
coming into the city ; but they soon terrified the citizens into 
lowering it again, and spread themselves, with great uproar, 
over the streets. They broke open the prisons ; they burned 
the papers in Lambeth Palace ; they destroyed the Duke of 
Lancaster's Palace, the Savoy, in the Strand, said to be the 
most beautiful and splendid in England ; they set fire to the 
books and documents in the Temple ; and made a great riot. 
Many of these outrages were committed in drunkenness ; 
since those citizens, who had well-filled cellars, were only too 
glad to throw them open to save the rest of their property ; 
but even the drunken rioters were very careful to steal noth- 
ing. They were so angry with one man, who was seen to 
take a silver cup at the Savoy Palace, and put it in his 
breast, that the}' drowned him in the river, cup and all. 

The young King had been taken out to treat with them 
before they committed these excesses ; but, he and the peo- 
ple about him were so frightened by the riotous shouts, that 
they got back to the Tower in the best way they could. This 
made the insurgents bolder ; so they went on rioting awa}% 
striking off the heads of those who did not, at a moment's 
notice, declare for King Richard and the people ; and killing 
as many of the unpopular persons whom they supposed to be 
their enemies as they could by any means la} T hold of. In 
this manner they passed one very violent day, and then pro- 
clamation was made that the King would meet them at Mile- 
end, and grant their requests. 

The rioters went to Mile-end to the number of sixt} T thou- 
sand, and the King met them there, and to the King the 
rioters peaceably proposed four conditions. First, that 
neither they, nor their children, nor airy coming after them, 
should be made slaves an}^ more. Secondly, that the rent 
of land should be fixed at a certain price in money, instead 



RICHARD THE SECOND. 197 

of being paid in service. Thirdly, that they should have 
liberty to buy and sell in all markets and public places, like 
other free men. Fourthly, that they should be pardoned for 
past offences. Heaven knows, there was nothing very unrea- 
sonable in these proposals ! The j'oung King deceitfully 
pretended to think so, and kept thirty clerks up, all night, 
writing out a charter accordingly. 

Now, Wat T}ier himself wanted more than this. He 
wanted the entire abolition of the forest laws. He was not 
at Mile-end with the rest, but, while that meeting was being 
held, broke into the Tower of London and slew the arch- 
bishop and the treasurer, for whose heads the people had 
cried out loudly the da}- before. He and his men even 
thrust their swords into the bed of the Princess of Wales 
while the Princess was in it, to make certain that none of 
their enemies were concealed there. 

So, Wat and his men still continued armed, and rode 
about the city. Next morning, the King with a small train 
of some sixty gentlemen — among whom was Wai/worth 
the Mayor — rode into Smithfield, and saw Wat and his peo- 
ple at a little distance. Sa}'s Wat to his men, "There is 
the King. I will go speak with him, and tell him what we 
want." 

Straightway Wat rode up to him, and began to talk. 
" King," sa3 r s Wat, " dost thou see all my men there? " 

" Ah," says the King. " Why ? " 

" Because," saj's Wat, " they are all at my command, and 
have sworn to do whatever I bid them." 

Some declared afterwards that as Wat said this, he laid 
his hand on the King's bridle. Others declared that he was 
seen to play with his own dagger. I think, myself, that he 
just spoke to the King like a rough, angiy man, as he was, 
and did nothing more. At any rate he was expecting no 
attack, and preparing for no resistance, when Walworth the 
Ma}'or did the not very valiant deed of drawing a short 
sword and stabbing him in the throat. He dropped from his 



198 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

horse, and one of the King's people speedily finished him. 
So fell Wat Tyler. Fawners and flatterers made a mighty 
triumph of it, and set up a cry which will occasionally find 
an echo to this day. But Wat was a hard-working man, who 
had suffered much, and had been foully outraged ; and it is 
probable that he was a man of a much higher nature and a 
much braver spirit than any of the parasites who exulted 
then, or have exulted since, over his defeat. 

Seeing Wat down, his men immediately bent their bows to 
avenge his fall. If the young King had not had presence of 
mind at that dangerous moment, both he and the Mayor to 
boot, might have followed Tjier pretty fast. But the King 
riding up to the crowd, cried out that Tyler was a traitor, and 
that he would be their leader. They were so taken by sur- 
prise, that the}'' set up a great shouting, and followed the boy 
until he was met at Islington by a large body of soldiers. 

The end of this rising was the then usual end. As soon 
as the King found himself safe, he unsaid all he had said, 
and undid all he had done ; some fifteen hundred of the 
rioters were tried (mostly in Essex) with great rigor, and 
executed with great cruelty. Many of them were hanged on 
gibbets, and left there as a terror to the country people ; and, 
because their miserable friends took some of the bodies down 
to bury, the King ordered the rest to be chained up — which 
was the beginning of the barbarous custom of hanging in 
chains. The King's falsehood in this business makes such a 
pitiful figure, that I think Wat Tyler appears in history as 
beyond comparison the truer and more respectable man of 
the two. 

Richard was now sixteen 3'ears of age, and married Anne 
of Bohemia, an excellent princess, who was called " the good 
Queen Anne." She deserved a better husband ; for the 
King had been fawned and flattered into a treacherous, 
wasteful, dissolute, bad young man. 

There were two Popes at this time (as if one were not 
enough !), and their quarrels involved Europe in a great deal 



RICHARD THE SECOND. 199 

of trouble. Scotland was still troublesome too ; and at home 
there was much jealousy and distrust, and plotting and 
counter-plotting, because the King feared the ambition of his 
relations, and particularly of his uncle, the Duke of Lancas- 
ter, and the duke had his paiiy against the King, and the 
King had his party against the duke. Nor were these home 
troubles lessened when the duke went to Castile to urge his 
claim to the crown of that kingdom ; for then the Duke of 
Gloucester, another of Richard's uncles, opposed him, and 
influenced the Parliament to demand the dismissal of the 
King's favorite ministers. The King said in reply, that he 
would not for such men dismiss the meanest servant in his 
kitchen. But, it had begun to signify little what a King said 
whetl a Parliament was determined ; so Richard was at last 
obliged to give waj^, and to agree to another Government of 
the kingdom, under a commission of fourteen nobles, for a 
year. His uncle of Gloucester was at the head of this com- 
mission, and, in fact, appointed everybody composing it. 

Having done all this, the King declared as soon as he saw 
an opportunity that he had never meant to do it, and that it 
was all illegal ; and he got the judges secretly to sign a 
declaration to that effect. The secret oozed out directly, and 
was carried to the Duke of Gloucester. The Duke of Glou- 
cester, at the head of fort}' thousand men, met the King on 
his entering into London to enforce his authority ; the King 
was helpless against him ; his favorites and ministers were 
impeached and were mercilessly executed. Among them 
were two men whom the people regarded with very different 
feelings ; one, Robert Tresilian, Chief Justice, who was hated 
for having made what was called ' ' the bloody circuit " to try 
the rioters ; the other, Sir Simon Burley, an honorable knight, 
who had been the dear friend of the Black Prince, and the 
governor and guardian of the King. For this gentleman's 
life the good Queen even begged of Gloucester on her knees ; 
but Gloucester (with or without reason) feared and hated 
him, and replied, that if she valued her husband's crown, she 



200 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

had better beg no more. All this was done under what was 
called by some the wonderful — and by others, with better 
reason, the merciless — Parliament. 

But Gloucester's power was not to last for ever. He held 
it for only a year longer ; in which year the famous battle of 
Otterbourne, sung in the old ballad of Chevy Chase, was 
fought. When the year was out, the King, turning suddenly 
to Gloucester, in the midst of a great council said, " Uncle, 
how old am I?" " Your highness," returned the Duke, " is 
in your twenty-second year." "Am I so much?" said the 
King, " then I will manage my own affairs! I am much 
obliged to you, my good lords, for jour past services, but I 
need them no more." He followed this up, by appointing a 
new Chancellor and a new Treasurer, and announced to the 
people that he had resumed the Government. He held it for 
eight years without opposition. Through all that time, he 
kept his determination to revenge himself some day upon his 
uncle Gloucester, in his own breast. 

At last the good Queen died, and then the King, desiring 
to take a second wife, proposed to his council that he should 
marry Isabella, of France, the daughter of Charles the Sixth : 
who, the French courtiers said (as the English courtiers had 
said of Richard) , was a marvel of beauty and wit, and quite 
a phenomenon — of seven years old. The council were di- 
vided about this marriage, but it took place. It secured 
peace between England and France for a quarter of a century ; 
but it was strongly opposed to the prejudices of the English 
people. The Duke of Gloucester, who was anxious to take 
the occasion of making himself popular, declaimed against it 
loudly, and this at length decided the King to execute the 
vengeance he had been nursing so long. 

He went with a gay company to the Duke of Gloucester's 
house, Pleshey Castle, in Essex, where the Duke, suspecting 
nothing, came out into the courtyard to receive his royal 
visitor. While the King conversed in a friendly manner with 
the Duchess, the Duke was quietly seized, hurried away, 



KICHAED THE SECOND. 201 

shipped for Calais, and lodged in the castle there. His 
friends, the Earls of Arundel and Warwick, were taken in 
the same treacherous manner, and confined to their castles. 
A few da} T s after, at Nottingham, they were impeached of 
high treason. The Earl of Arundel was condemned and be- 
headed, and the Earl of Warwick was banished. Then, a 
writ was sent by a messenger to the Governor of Calais, re- 
quiring him to send the Duke of Gloucester over to be tried. 
In three da} r s he returned an answer that he could not do 
that, because the Duke of Gloucester had died in prison. 
The Duke was declared a traitor, his property was confiscated 
to the King, a real or pretended confession he had made in 
prison to one of the Justices of the Common Pleas was pro- 
duced against him, and there was an end of the matter. 
How the unfortunate duke died, very few cared to know. 
Whether he really died naturally ; whether he killed himself; 
whether, b}^ the King's order, he was strangled, or smothered 
between two beds (as a serving- man of the Governor's named 
Hall, did afterwards declare) , cannot be discovered. There 
is not much doubt that he was killed* somehow or other, by 
his nephew's orders. Among the most active nobles in these 
proceedings were the King's cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, 
whom the King had made Duke of Hereford to smooth down 
the old family quarrels, and some others^ who had in the 
famiLv-plotting times done just such acts themselves as they 
now condemned in the duke. They seem to have been a 
corrupt set of men ; but such men were easily found about 
the court in such daj^s. 

The people murmured at all this, and were still very sore 
about the French marriage. The nobles saw how little the 
King cared for law, and how crafty he was, and began to be 
somewhat afraid of themselves. The King's life was a life 
of continued feasting and excess ; his retinue, down to the 
meanest servants, were dressed in the most costly manner, 
and caroused at his tables ; it is related, to the number of 
ten thousand persons every da}?-. He himself, surrounded by 



202 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

a body of ten thousand archers, and enriched by a duty on 
wool which the Commons had granted him for life, saw no 
danger of ever being otherwise than powerful and absolute, 
and was as fierce and haughty as a King could be. 

He had two of his old enemies left, in the persons of the 
Dukes of Hereford and Norfolk. Sparing these no more than 
the others, he tampered with the Duke of Hereford until he 
got him to declare before the Council that the Duke of Nor- 
folk had lately held some treasonable talk with him, as he 
was riding near Brentford ; and that he had told him, among 
other things, that he could not believe the King's oath — 
which nobody could, I should think. For this treachery he 
obtained a pardon, and the Duke of Norfolk was summoned 
to appear and defend himself. As he denied the charge and 
said his accuser was a liar and a traitor, both noblemen, ac- 
cording to the manner of those times, were held in custod}-, 
and the truth was ordered to be decided by wager of battle at 
Coventry. This wager of battle meant that whomsoever won 
the combat was to be considered in the right ; which nonsense 
meant in effect, that no strong man could ever be wrong. A 
great holiday was made ; a great crowd assembled, with much 
parade and show ; and the two combatants were about to 
rush at each other with their lances, when the King, sitting 
in a pavilion to see fair, threw down the truncheon he carried 
in his hand, and forbade the battle. The Duke of Hereford 
was to be banished for ten years, and the Duke of Norfolk 
was to be banished for life. So said the King. The Duke 
of Hereford went to France, and went no farther. The Duke 
of Norfolk made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and after- 
wards died at Venice of a broken heart. 

Faster and fiercer, after this, the King went on in his career. 
The Duke of Lancaster, who was the father of the Duke of 
Hereford, died soon after the departure of his son ; and, the 
King, although he had solemnly granted to that son leave tc 
inherit his father's propert} r , if it should come to him during 
his banishment, immediately seized it all, like a robber. 



EICHARD THE SECOND. 203 

The judges were so afraid of him, that they disgraced them- 
selves by declaring this theft to be just and lawful. His ava- 
rice knew no bounds. He outlawed seventeen counties at 
once, on a frivolous pretence, merely to raise mone} T b}- way 
of fines for misconduct. In short, he did as many dishonest 
things as he could ; and cared so little for the discontent of 
his subjects — though even the spaniel favorites began to 
whisper to him that there was such a thing as discontent 
afloat — that he took that time, of all others, for leaving 
England and making an expedition against the Irish. 

He was scarcely gone, leaving the Duke of York Regent 
in his absence, when his cousin, Henry of Hereford, came 
over from France to claim the rights of which he had been so 
monstrously deprived. He was immediately joined by the 
two great Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland ; and 
his uncle, the Regent, finding the King's cause unpopular, 
and the disinclination of the army to act against Henry, very 
strong, withdrew the royal forces towards Bristol. Henry, 
at the head of an army, came from Yorkshire (where he had 
landed) to London and followed him. They joined their 
forces — how they brought that about is not distinctly under- 
stood — and proceeded to Bristol Castle, whither three noble- 
men had taken the 3'oung Queen. The castle surrendering, 
they presently put those three noblemen to death. The Re- 
gent then remained there, and Henry went on to Chester. 

All this time, the boisterous weather had prevented the 
King from receiving intelligence of what had occurred. At 
length it was conveyed to him in Ireland, and he sent over 
the Earl of Salisbury, who, landing at Conwa} T , rallied the 
Welshmen, and waited for the King a whole fortnight ; at the 
end of that time the Welshmen, who were perhaps not very 
warm for him in the beginning, quite cooled down and went 
home. When the King did land on the coast at last, he came 
with a prettj* good power, but his men cared nothing for him, 
and quickly deserted. Supposing the Welshmen to be still at 
Conway, he disguised himself as a priest, and made for that 



204 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

place in company with his two brothers and some few of their 
adherents. But, there were no Welshmen left — only Salis- 
bury and a hundred soldiers. In this distress, the King's two 
brothers, Exeter and Surrey, offered to go to Henr}^ to learn 
what his intentions were. Surrey, who was true to Richard, 
was put into prison. Exeter, who was false, took the ro} T al 
badge, which was a hart, off his shield, and assumed the rose, 
the badge of Henry. After this, it was pretty plain to the 
King what Henry's intentions were, without sending any more 
messengers to ask. 

The fallen King, thus deserted — hemmed in on all sides, 
and pressed with hunger — rode here and rode there, and 
went to this Castle, and went to that castle, endeavoring to 
obtain some provisions, but could find none. He rode 
wretchedly back to Conway, and there surrendered himself to 
the Earl of Northumberland, who came from Henry, in reality 
to take him prisoner, but in appearance to offer terms ; and 
whose men were hidden not far off. By this earl he was 
conducted to the castle of Flint, where his cousin Henry met 
him, and dropped on his knee as if he were still respectful to 
his sovereign. 

" Fair cousin of Lancaster," said the King, " you are very 
welcome " (very welcome, no doubt ; but he would have been 
more so, in chains or without a head) . 

" My lord," replied Henry, " I am come a little before my 
time ; but, with your good pleasure, I will show you the rea- 
son. Your people complain with some bitterness, that you 
have ruled them rigorously for two-and-twenty years. Now, 
if it please God, I will help you to govern them better in 
future." 

" Fair cousin," replied the abject King, " since it pleaseth 
you, it pleaseth me mightily." 

After this, the trumpets sounded, and the King was stuck 
on a wretched horse, and carried prisoner to Chester, where 
he was made to issue a proclamation, calling a Parliament. 
From Chester he was taken on towards London. At Lichfield 



RICHARD THE SECOND. 205 

he tried to escape by getting out of a window and letting 
himself down into a garden ; it was all in vain, however, and 
he was carried on and shut up in the Tower, where no one 
pitied him, and where the whole people, whose patience he 
had quite tired out, reproached him without mercy. Before 
he got there, it is related, that his very dog left him and de- 
parted from his side to lick the hand of Henry. 

The day before the Parliament met, a deputation went to 
this wrecked King, and told him that he had promised the 
Earl of Northumberland at Conway Castle to resign the 
crown. He said he was quite ready to do it, and signed a 
paper in which he renounced his authority and absolved his 
people from their allegiance to him. He had so little spirit 
left that he gave his royal ring to his triumphant cousin 
Henry with his own hand, and said, that if he could have had 
leave to appoint a successor, that same Henry was the man 
of all others whom he would have named. Next day, the 
Parliament assembled in Westminster Hall, where Henry sat 
at the side of the throne, which was empty and covered with 
a cloth of gold. The paper just signed by the King was read 
to the multitude amid shouts of joy, which were echoed 
through all the streets ; when some of the noise had died 
awa}', the King was formally deposed. Then Hemy arose, 
and, making the sign of the cross on his forehead and breast, 
challenged the realm of England as his right ; the archbishops 
of Canterbuty and York seated him on the throne. 

The multitude shouted again, and the shouts re-echoed 
throughout all the streets. No one remembered, now, that 
Richard the Second had ever been the most beautiful, the 
wisest, and the best of princes ; and he now made living (to 
my thinking) a far more sorry spectacle in the Tower of 
London, than Wat Tyler had made, lying dead, among the 
hoofs of the royal horses in Smithfield. 

The Poll-tax died with Wat. The Smiths to the King and 
Royal Family could make no chains in which the King could 
hang the people's recollection of him ; so the Poll-tax was 
never collected. 



206 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER XX. 

ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FOURTH, CALLED BOLINGBROKE. 

During the last reign, the preaching of Wickliffe against 
the pride and cunning of the Pope and all his men, had made 
a great noise in England. Whether the new King wished to 
be in favor with the priests, or whether he hoped, by pre- 
tending to be very religious, to cheat Heaven itself into the 
belief that he was not an usurper, I don't know. Both suppo- 
sitions are likely enough. It is certain that he began his 
reign by making a strong show against the followers of 
Wickliffe, who were called Lollards or heretics — although 
his father, John of Gaunt, had been of that way of thinking, 
as he himself had been more than suspected of being. It is 
no less certain that he first established in England the detest- 
able and atrocious custom, brought from abroad, of burning 
those people as a punishment for their opinions. It was the 
importation into England of one of the practices of what 
was called the Holy Inquisition : which was the most un- 
holy and the most infamous tribunal that ever disgraced 
mankind, and made men more like demons than followers of 
Our Saviour. 

No real right to the crown, as 3-011 know, was in this King. 
Edward Mortimer, the young Earl of March — who was only 
eight or nine years old, and who was descended from the 
Duke of Clarence, the elder brother of Henry's father — was, 
b}- succession, the real heir to the throne. However, the 
King got his son declared Prince of Wales ; and, obtaining 
possession of the young Earl of March and his little brother, 
kept them in confinement (but not severely) in Windsor Cas- 



HENRY THE FOURTH. 207 

tie. He then required the Parliament to decide what was to 
be done with the deposed King, who was quiet enough, and 
who only said that he hoped his cousin Henry would be " a 
good lord " to him. The Parliament replied that the}' would 
recommend his being kept in some secret place where the 
people could not resort, and where his friends could not be 
admitted to see him. Henry accordingly passed this sentence 
upon him, and it now began to be pretty clear to the nation 
that Richard the Second would not live very long. 

It was a noisy Parliament, as it was an unprincipled one, 
and the Lords quarrelled so violently among themselves as to 
which of them had been loyal and which disloyal, and which 
consistent and which inconsistent, that forty gauntlets are 
sakj. to have been thrown upon the floor at one time as chal- 
lenges to as many battles : the truth being that the} 7 were all 
false and base together, and had been, at one time with the 
old King, and at another time with the new one, and seldom 
true for any length of time to any one. They soon began to 
plot again. A conspiracy was formed to invite the King to a 
tournament at Oxford, and then to take him by surprise and 
kill him. This murderous enterprise, which was agreed upon 
at secret meetings in the house of the Abbot of Westminster, 
was betrayed by the Earl of Rutland — one of the conspira- 
tors. The King, instead of going to the tournament or stay- 
ing at Windsor (where the conspirators suddenly went, on 
finding themselves discovered, with the hope of seizing him), 
retired to London, proclaimed them all traitors, and advanced 
upon them with a great force. They retired into the west of 
England, proclaiming Richard King; but, the people rose 
against them, and they were all slain. Their treason hastened 
the death of the deposed monarch. Whether he was killed 
by hired assassins, or whether he was starved to death, or 
whether he refused food on hearing of his brothers being 
killed (who were in that plot), is very doubtful. He met his 
death somehow ; and his body was publicly shown at St. 
Paul's Cathedral with only the lower part of the face un- 



208 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

covered. I can scarcely doubt that he was killed by the 
King's orders. 

The French wife of the miserable Richard was now only 
ten years old ; and, when her father, Charles of France, 
heard of her misfortunes and of her lonely condition in Eng- 
land, he went mad : as he had several times done before, 
during the last five or six years. The French Dukes of Bur- 
gundy and Bourbon took up the poor girl's cause, without 
caring much about it, but on the chance of getting something 
out of England. The people of Bordeaux, who had a sort 
of superstitious attachment to the memory of Richard, be- 
cause he was born there, swore b} r the Lord that he had been 
the best man in all his kingdom — which was going rather far 
— and promised to do great things against the English. 
Nevertheless, when they came to consider that they, and the 
whole people of France, were ruined by their own nobles, and 
that the English rule was much the better of the two, they 
cooled down again ; and the two dukes, although the}'' were 
very great men, could do nothing without them. Then, be- 
gan negotiations between France and England for the sending 
home to Paris of the poor little Queen with all her jewels and 
her fortune of two hundred thousand francs in gold. The 
King was quite willing to restore the young lad} T , and even 
the jewels ; but he said he really could not part with the 
money. So, at last she was safety deposited a"t Paris without 
her fortune, and then the Duke of Burgundy (who was cousin 
to the French King) began to quarrel with the Duke of Or- 
leans (who was brother to the French King) about the whole 
matter ; and those two dukes made France even more wretched 
than ever. 

As the idea of conquering Scotland was still popular at 
home, the King marched to the river Tyne and demanded 
homage of the King of that country. This being refused, he 
advanced to Edinburgh, but did little there ; for, his army 
being in want of provisions, and the Scotch being very care- 
ful to hold him in check without giving battle, he was obliged 



HENRY THE FOURTH. 209 

to retire. It is to his immortal honor that in this sally he 
burnt no villages and slaughtered no people, but was particu- 
larly careful that his SLrmy should be merciful and harmless. 
It was a great example in those ruthless times. 

A war among the border people of England and Scotland 
went on for twelve months, and then the Earl of Northumber- 
land, the nobleman who had helped Henry to the crown, be- 
gan to rebel against him — probably because nothing that 
Hemy could do for him would satisfy his extravagant expec- 
tations. There was a certain Welsh gentleman, named Owen 
Glendower, who had been a student in one of the Inns of 
Court, and had afterwards been in the service of the late 
King, whose Welsh property was taken from him b}- a power- 
ful x lord related to the present King, who was his neighbor. 
Appealing for redress, and getting none, he took up arms, 
was made an outlaw, and declared himself sovereign of Wales. 
He pretended to be a magician ; and not only were the Welsh 
people stupid enough to believe him, but, even Henry be- 
lieved him too : for, making three expeditions into Wales, 
and being three times driven back by the wildness of the 
Country, the bad weather, and the skill of Glendower, he 
thought he was defeated by the Welshman's magic arts. 
However, he took Lord Grey and Sir Edmund Mortimer, 
prisoners, and allowed the relatives of Lord Grey to ran- 
som him, but would not extend such favor to Sir Edmund 
Mortimer. Now, Henry Percy, called Hotspur, son of the 
Earl of Northumberland, who was married to Mortimer's 
sister, is supposed to have taken offence at this ; and, there- 
fore, in conjunction with his father and some others, to have 
joined Owen Glendower, and risen against Henry. It is by 
no means clear that this was the real cause of the conspiracy ; 
but perhaps it was made the pretext. It was formed, and 
was very powerful ; including Scroop, Archbishop of York, 
and the Earl of Douglas, a powerful and brave Scottish 
nobleman. The King was prompt and active, and the two 
armies met at Shrewsbury. 

14 



210 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

There were about fourteen thousand men in each. The 
old Earl of Northumberland being sick, the rebel forces were 
led by his son. The King wore plain armor to deceive the 
enemy; and four noblemen, with the same object, wore the 
ro}^al arms. The rebel charge was so furious, that every 
one of those gentlemen was killed, the ro3 T al standard was 
beaten down, and the young Prince of Wales was severely 
wounded in the face. But he was one of the bravest and 
best soldiers that ever lived, and he fought so well, and the 
King's troops were so encouraged by his bold example, that 
they rallied immediate^, and cut the enemy's forces all to 
pieces. Hotspur was killed by an arrow in the brain, and the 
rout was so complete that the whole rebellion was struck down 
by this one blow. The Earl of Northumberland surrendered 
himself soon after hearing of the death of his son, and received 
a pardon for all his offences. 

There were some lingerings of rebellion yet : Owen Glen- 
dower being retired to Wales, and a preposterous story being 
spread among the ignorant people that King Richard was still 
alive. How they could have believed such nonsense it is 
difficult to imagine ; but they certainly did suppose that the 
Court fool of the late King, who was something like him, was 
he, himself; so that it seemed as if, after giving so much 
trouble to the country in his life, he was still to trouble it 
after his death. This was not the worst. The young Earl 
of March and his brother were stolen out of Windsor Castle. 
Being retaken, and being found to have been spirited away 
by one Lady Spencer, she accused her own brother, that Earl 
of Rutland who was in the former conspiracy and was now 
Duke of York, of being in the plot. For this he was ruined 
in fortune, though not put to death ; and then another plot 
arose among the old Earl of Northumberland, some other 
lords, and that same Scroop, Archbishop of York, who was 
with the rebels before. These conspirators caused a writing 
to be posted on the church doors, accusing the King of a va- 
riety of crimes ; but, the King being eager and vigilant to 



HENEY THE FOURTH. 211 

oppose them, they were all taken, and the Archbishop was 
executed. This was the first time that a great churchman 
had been slain by the law in England ; but the King was re- 
solved that it should be done, and done it was. 

The next most remarkable event of this time was the seiz- 
ure, b} r Henry, of the heir to the Scottish throne — James, 
a boy of nine years old. He had been put aboard-ship by his 
father, the Scottish King Robert, to save him from the de- 
signs of his uncle, when, on his way to France, he was acci- 
dentally taken by some English cruisers. He remained a 
prisoner in England for nineteen years, and became in his 
prison a student and a famous poet. 

With the exception of occasional troubles with the Welsh 
anc|with the French, the rest of King Henry's reign was quiet 
enough. But, the King was far from happ} 7 , and probably 
was troubled in his conscience b} 7 knowing that he had 
usurped the crown, and had occasioned the death of his mis- 
erable cousin. The Prince of Wales, though brave and gen- 
erous, is said to have been wild and dissipated, and even to 
have drawn his sword on Gascoigne, the Chief Justice of the 
King's Bench, because he was firm in dealing impartially with 
one of his dissolute companions. Upon this the Chief Justice 
is said to have ordered him immediately to prison ; the Prince 
of Wales is said to have submitted with a good grace ; and 
the King is said to have exclaimed, " Happy is the monarch 
who has so just a judge, and a son so willing to obey the 
laws." This is all very doubtful, and so is another story (of 
which Shakespeare has made beautiful use) , that the Prince 
once took the crown out of his father's chamber as he was 
sleeping, and tried it on his own head. 

The King's health sank more and more, and he became 
subject to violent eruptions on the face and to bad epileptic 
fits, and his spirits sank every day. At last, as he was pray- 
ing before the shrine of St. Edward at Westminster Abbey, 
he was seized with a terrible fit, and was carried into the 
Abbot's chamber, where he presently died. It had been fore- 



212 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

told that he would die at Jerusalem, which certainly is not, 
and never was, Westminster. But, as the Abbot's room had 
long been called the Jerusalem chamber, people said it was 
all the same thing, and were quite satisfied with the pre- 
diction. 

The King died on the 20th of March, 1413, in the forty- 
seventh year of his age, and the fourteenth of his reign. 
He was buried in Canterbury Cathedral. He had been twice 
married, and had, by his first wife, a family of four sons and 
two daughters. Considering his duplicity before he came to 
the throne, his unjust seizure of it, and, above all, his making 
that monstrous law for the burning of what the priests called 
heretics, he was a reasonably good king, as kings went. 



HENRY THE FIFTH. 213 



CHAPTER XXL 

ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FIFTH. 

First Paet. 

The Prince of Wales began his reign like a generous and 
honest man. He set the young Earl of March free ; he re- 
stored their estates and their honors to the Percy family, who 
had lost them b} T their rebellion against his father ; he ordered 
the imbecile and unfortunate Richard to be honorably buried 
among the Kings of England ; and he dismissed all his wild 
companions, with assurances that they should not want, if 
they would resolve to be steady, faithful, and true. 

It is much easier to burn men than to burn their opinions ; 
and those of the Lollards were spreading eveiy day. The 
Lollards were represented b}- the priests — probably falsely 
for the most part — to entertain treasonable designs against 
the new King ; and Henry, suffering himself to be worked 
upon by these representations, sacrificed his friend Sir John 
Oldcastle, the Lord Cobham, to them, after trying in vain to 
convert him by arguments. He was declared guilty, as the 
head of the sect, and sentenced to the flames ; but he escaped 
from the Tower before the day of execution (postponed for 
fifty days by the King himself) , and summoned the Lollards 
to meet him near London on a certain day. So the priests 
told the King, at least. I doubt whether there was any con- 
spiracy beyond such as was got up by their agents. On the 
day appointed, instead of five-and-twenty thousand men, 
under the command of Sir John Oldcastle, in the meadows of 
St. Giles, the King found only eighty men, and no Sir John 



214 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

at all. There was, in another place, an addle-headed brewer, 
who had gold trappings to his horses, and a pair of gilt spurs 
in his breast — expecting to be made a knight next day by 
Sir John, and so to gain the right to wear them — but there 
was no Sir John, nor did anybody give information respecting 
him, though the King offered great rewards for such intelli- 
gence. Thirty of these unfortunate Lollards were hanged 
and drawn immediatery, and were then burnt, gallows and 
all; and -the various prisons in and around London were 
crammed full of others. Some of these unfortunate men 
made various confessions of treasonable designs ; but such 
confessions were easily got, under torture and the fear of 
fire, and are very little to be trusted. To finish the sad story 
of Sir John Oldcastle at once, I may mention that he escaped 
into Wales, and remained there safely, for four years. When 
discovered by Lord Powis, it is very doubtful if he would 
have been taken alive — so great was the old soldier's bravery 
— if a miserable old woman had not come behind him and 
broken his legs with a stool. He was carried to London in a 
horse-litter, was fastened by an iron chain to a gibbet, and 
so roasted to death. 

To make the state of France as plain as I can in a few 
words, I should tell you that the Duke of Orleans, and the 
Duke of Burgundy, commonly called "John without fear," 
had 'had a grand reconciliation of their quarrel in the last 
reign, and had appeared to be quite in a heavenly state of 
mind. Immediately after which, on a Sunday, in the public 
streets of Paris, the Duke of Orleans was murdered by a 
party of twenty men, set on by the Duke of Burgundy — 
according to his own deliberate confession. The widow of 
King Richard had been married in France to the eldest son 
of the Duke of Orleans. The poor mad King was quite 
powerless to help her, and the Duke of Burgundy became 
the real master of France. Isabella dying, her husband 
(Duke of Orleans since the death of his father) married the 
daughter of the Count of Armagnac, who, being a much 



HENRY THE FIFTH. 215 

abler man than his young son-in-law, headed his party ; 
thence called after him Armagnacs. Thus, France was now 
in this terrible condition, that it had in it the party of the 
King's son, the Dauphin Louis ; the party of the Duke of 
Burgund}', who was the father of the Dauphin's ill-used wife ; 
and the part} T of the Armagnacs ; all hating each other ; all 
fighting together ; all composed of the most depraved nobles 
that the earth has ever known ; and all tearing unhappy 
France to pieces. 

The late King had watched these dissensions from Eng- 
land, sensible (like the French people) that no enemy of 
France could injure her more than her own nobility. The 
present King now advanced a claim to the French throne. 
His /demand being, of course, refused, he reduced his pro- 
posal to a certain large amount of French territoiy, and to 
demanding the French princess, Catherine, in marriage, with 
a fortune of two millions of golden crowns. He was offered 
less territory and fewer crowns, and no princess ; but he 
called his ambassadors home and prepared for war. Then, 
he proposed to take the princess with one million of crowns. 
The French Court replied that he should have the princess 
with two hundred thousand crowns less ; he said this would 
not do (he had never seen the princess in his life), and 
assembled his army at Southampton. There was a short 
plot at home just at that time, for deposing him, and making 
the Earl of March king ; but the conspirators were all speed- 
ily condemned and executed, and the King embarked for 
France. 

It is dreadful to observe how long a bad example will be 
followed ; but, it is encouraging to know that a good exam- 
ple is never thrown awa}^ The King's first act on disem- 
barking at the mouth of the river Seine, three miles from 
Harfleur, was to imitate his father, and to proclaim his sol- 
emn orders that the lives and property of the peaceable 
inhabitants should be respected on pain of death. It is 
agreed by French writers, to his lasting renown, that even 



216 A CHILD'S HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. 

while his soldiers were suffering the greatest distress from 
want of food, these commands were rigidly obeyed. 

With an army in all of thirty thousand men, he besieged 
the town of Harfleur both by sea and land for five weeks ; at 
the end of which time the town surrendered, and the inhabi- 
tants were allowed to depart with 011I3' fivepence each, and a 
part of their clothes. All the rest of their possessions was 
divided amongst the English army. But that army suffered 
so much in spite of its successes, from disease and privation, 
that it was already reduced one half. Still, the King was 
determined not to retire until he had struck a greater blow. 
Therefore, against the advice of all his counsellors, he moved 
on with his little force towards Calais. When he came up to 
the river Somme he was unable to cross, in consequence of 
the ford being fortified ; and, as the English moved up the 
left bank of the river looking for a crossing, the French, who 
had broken all the bridges, moved up the right bank, watch- 
ing them, and waiting to attack them when they should try 
to pass it. At last the English found a crossing and got 
safely over. The French held a council of war at Rouen, 
resolved to give the English battle, and sent heralds to King- 
Henry to know by which road he was going. ' ' By the road 
that will take me straight to Calais ! " said the King, and 
sent them away with a present of a hundred crowns. 

The English moved on, until they beheld the French, and 
then the King gave orders to form in line of battle. The 
French not coming on, the army broke up after remaining in 
battle array till night, and got good rest and refreshment at 
a neighboring village. The French were now all lying in 
another village, through which they knew the English must 
pass. They were resolved that the English should begin the 
battle. The English had no means of retreat, if their King 
had any such intention ; and so the two armies passed the 
night close together. 

To understand these armies well, you must bear in mind 
that the immense French army had, among its notable per- 



HENRY THE FIFTH. 217 

sons, almost the whole of that wicked nobilrty, whose de- 
bauchery had made France a desert ; and so besotted were 
they by pride, and by contempt for the common people, that 
they had scarcely any bowmen (if indeed they had any at all) 
in their whole enormous number : which, compared with the 
English army, was at least as six to one. For these proud 
fools had said that the bow was not a fit weapon for knightly 
hands, and that France must be defended by gentlemen 
only. We shall see, presently, what hand the gentlemen 
made of it. 

Now, on the English side, among the little force, there 
was a good proportion of men who were not gentlemen 
by any means, but who were good stout archers for all that. 
Anaong them in the morning — having slept little at night, 
while the French were carousing and making sure of victory 
— the King rode, on a gray horse ; wearing on his head a 
helmet of shining steel, surmounted by a crown of gold, 
sparkling with precious stones ; and bearing over his armor, 
embroidered together, the arms of England and the arms of 
France. The archers looked at the shining helmet and the 
crown of gold and the sparkling jewels, and admired them 
all ; but, what they admired most was the King's cheerful 
face, and his bright blue eye, as he told them that, for him- 
self, he had made up his mind to conquer there or to die 
there, and that England should never have a ransom to pay 
for him. There was one brave knight who chanced to say 
that he wished some of the many gallant gentlemen and 
good soldiers, who were then idle at home in England were 
there to increase their numbers. But the King told him that, 
for his part, he did not wish for one more man. " The fewer 
we have," said he, "the greater will be the honor we shall 
win ! " His men, being now all in good heart, were re- 
freshed with bread and wine, and heard prayers, and waited 
quietly for the French. The King waited for the French, 
because they were drawn up thirty deep (the little English 
force was only three deep), on very difficult and heavy 



218 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

ground ; and he knew that when they moved, there must be 
confusion among them. 

As they did not move, he sent off two parties: — one to 
lie concealed in a wood on the left of the French : the other, 
to set fire to some houses behind the French after the battle 
should be begun. This was scarcely done, when three of the 
proud French gentlemen, who were to defend their country 
without any help from the base peasants, came riding out, 
calling upon the English to surrender. The King warned 
those gentlemen himself to retire with all speed if they cared 
for their lives, and ordered the English banners to advance. 
Upon that, Sir Thomas Erpingham, a great English general, 
who commanded the archers, threw his truncheon into the 
air joyfully ; and all the English men, kneeling down upon 
the ground and biting it as if they took possession of the 
country, rose up with a great shout and fell upon the French. 

Every archer was furnished with a great stake tipped with 
iron ; and his orders were, to thrust this stake into the 
ground, to discharge his arrow, and then to fall back, when 
the French horsemen came on. As the haughty French 
gentlemen, who were to break the English archers and 
utterly destroy them with their knightly lances, came riding 
up, they were received with such a blinding storm of arrows 
that they broke and turned. Horses and men rolled over 
one another, and the confusion was terrific. Those who 
rallied and charged the archers got among the stakes on 
slippery and boggy ground, and were so bewildered that the 
English archers — who wore no armor, and even took off 
their leathern coats to be more active — cut them to pieces, 
root and branch. Only three French horsemen got within 
the stakes, and those were instantly despatched. All this 
time the dense French arn^, being in armor, were sinking 
knee-deep into the mire ; while the light English archers, 
half-naked, were as fresh and active as if they were fighting 
on a marble floor. 

But now, the second division of the French coming to the re- 



HENRY THE FIFTH. 219 

lief of the first, closed up in a firm mass ; the English, headed 
bj T the King, attacked them ; and the deadliest part of the 
battle began. The King's brother, the Duke of Clarence, was 
struck down, and numbers of the French surrounded him ; 
but, King Henry, standing over the body, fought like a lion 
until they were beaten off*. 

Presently, came up a band of eighteen French knights, 
bearing the banner of a certain French lord, who had sworn 
to kill or take the English King. One of them struck him 
such a blow with a battle-axe that he reeled and fell upon his 
knees ; but his faithful men, immediatery closing round him, 
killed every one of those eighteen knights, and so that French 
lord never kept his oath. 

The French Duke of Alencon, seeing this, made a desperate 
charge, and cut his way close up to the Royal Standard of 
England. He beat clown the Duke of York, who was stand- 
ing near it ; and when the King came to his rescue, struck off 
a piece of the crown he wore. But, he never struck another 
blow in this world ; for, even as he was in the act of saying 
who he was, and that he surrendered to the King ; and even 
as the King stretched out his hand to give him a safe and 
honorable acceptance of the offer ; he fell dead, pierced by 
innumerable wounds. 

The death of this nobleman decided the battle. The third 
division of the French army, which had never struck a blow 
yet, and which was, in itself, more than double the whole 
English power, broke and fled. At this time of the fight, the 
English, who as 3-et had made no prisoners, began to take 
them in immense numbers, and were still occupied in doing 
so, or in killing those who would not surrender, when a great 
noise arose in the rear of the French — their flying banners 
were seen to stop — and King Henry, supposing a great rein- 
forcement to have arrived, gave orders that all the prisoners 
should be put to death. As soon, however, as it was found 
that the noise was only occasioned b} T a body of plundering 
peasants, the terrible massacre was stopped. 



220 A CHILD'S HISTOKY OF ENGLAND. 

Then King Henry called to him the .French herald, and 
asked him to whom the victory belonged. 

The herald replied, " To the King of England." 

" We have not made this havoc and slaughter," said the 
King. " It is the wrath of Heaven on the sins of France. 
What is the name of that castle yonder?" 

The herald answered him, " My lord, it is the castle of 
Azincourt." 

Said the King, " From henceforth this battle shall be 
known to posterity, by the name of the battle of Azincourt." 

Our English historians have made it Agincourt ; but, under 
that name, it will ever be famous in English annals. 

The loss upon the French side was enormous. Three 
Dukes were killed, two more were taken prisoners, seven 
Counts were killed, three more were taken prisoners, and ten 
thousand knights and gentlemen were slain upon the field. 
The English loss amounted to sixteen hundred men, among 
whom were the Duke of York and the Earl of Suffolk. 

War is a dreadful thing ; and it is appalling to know how 
the English were obliged, next morning, to kill those pris- 
oners mortally wounded, who yet writhed in agony upon the 
ground ; how the dead upon the French side were stripped 
by their own countiymen and countiywomen, and afterwards 
buried in great pits ; how the dead upon the English side 
were piled up in a great barn, and how their bodies and the 
barn were all burned together. It is in such things, and in 
many more much too horrible to relate, that the real desola- 
tion and wickedness of war consists. Nothing can make war 
otherwise than horrible. But the dark side of it was little 
thought of and soon forgotten ; and it cast no shade of trouble 
on the English people, except on those who had lost friends 
or relations in the fight. They welcomed their King home 
with shouts of rejoicing, and plunged into the water to bear 
him ashore on their shoulders, and flocked out in crowds to 
welcome him in every town through which he passed, and 
hung rich carpets and tapestries out of the windows, and 



HENRY THE FIFTH. 221 

strewed the streets with flowers, and made the fountains 
run with wine, as the great field of Agincourt had run with 
blood. 



Second Part. 

That proud and wicked French nobility who dragged their 
country to destruction, and who were every da}- and every 
year regarded with deeper hatred and detestation in the 
hearts of the French people, learnt nothing, even from the 
defeat of Agincourt. So far from uniting against the com- 
mon enemy, they became, among themselves, more violent, 
more blood}*, and more false — if that were possible — than 
they had been before. The Count of Armagnac persuaded 
the French king to plunder of her treasures Queen Isabella of 
Bavaria, and to make her a prisoner. She, who had hitherto 
been the bitter enemy of the Duke of Burgundy, proposed to 
join him, in revenge. He carried her off to Troyes, where 
she proclaimed herself Regent of France, and made him her 
lieutenant. The Armagnac part}' were at that time possessed 
of Paris ; but, one of the gates of the city being secretly 
opened on a certain night to a party of the duke's men, they 
got into Paris, threw into the prisons all the Armagnacs 
upon whom they could lay their hands, and, a few nights 
afterwards, with the aid of a furious mob of sixty thousand 
people, broke the prisons open, and killed them all. The 
former Dauphin was now dead, and the King's third son 
bore the title. Him, in the height of this murderous scene, 
a French knight hurried out of bed, wrapped in a sheet, and 
bore away to Poitiers. So, when the revengeful Isabella and 
the Duke of Burgundy entered Paris in triumph after the 
slaughter of their enemies, the Dauphin was proclaimed at 
Poitiers as the real Regent. 

King Henry had not been idle since his victory of Agin- 
court, but had repulsed a brave attempt of the French to 
recover Harfleur ; had gradually conquered a great part of 



222 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Normancty ; and, at this crisis of affairs, took the important 
town of Rouen, after a siege of half a year. This great loss 
so alarmed the French, that the Duke of Burgundy proposed 
that a meeting to treat of peace should be held between the 
French and the English kings in a plain by the river Seme. 
On the appointed day, King Henry appeared there, with his 
two brothers, Clarence and Gloucester, and a thousand men. 
The unfortunate French King, being more mad than usual 
that day, could not come ; but the Queen came, and with her 
the Princess Catherine : who was a very lovely creature, and 
who made a real impression on King Henry, now that he 
saw her for the first time. This was the most important 
circumstance that arose out of the meeting. 

As if it were impossible for a French nobleman of that 
time to be true to his word of honor in airything, Henry dis- 
covered that the Duke of Burgundy was, at that veiy moment, 
in secret treaty with the Dauphin ; and he therefore aban- 
doned the negotiation. 

The Duke of Burgundy and the Dauphin, each of whom 
with the best reason distrusted the other as a noble ruffian 
surrounded by a party of noble ruffians, were rather at a loss 
how to proceed after this ; but, at length they agreed to meet, 
on a bridge over the river Yonne, where it was arranged that 
there should be two strong gates put up, with an empty space 
between them ; and that the Duke of Burgundy should come 
into that space by one gate, with ten men only ; and that the 
Dauphin should come into that space by the other gate, also 
with ten men, and no more. 

So far the Dauphin kept his word, but no farther. When 
the Duke of Burguncty was on his knee before him in the act 
of speaking, one of the Dauphin's noble ruffians cut the said 
duke down with a small axe, and others speedily finished 
him. 

It was in vain for the Dauphin to pretend that this base 
murder was not done with his consent ; it was too bad, even 
for France, and caused a general horror. The Duke's heir 



HENEY THE FIFTH. 223 

hastened to make a treat}^ with King Hemy, and the French 
Queen engaged that her husband should consent to it, what- 
ever it was. Henry made peace, on condition of receiving 
the Princess Catherine in marriage, and being made Regent 
of France during the rest of the King's lifetime, and succeed- 
ing to the French crown at his death. He was soon married 
to the beautiful Princess, and took her proudly home to Eng- 
land, where she was crowned with great honor and glory. 

This peace was called the Perpetual Peace ; we shall soon 
see how long it lasted. It gave great satisfaction to the 
French people, although they were so poor and miserable, 
that, at the time of the celebration of the Royal marriage, 
numbers of them were dying of starvation, on the dunghills 
iii/the streets of Paris. There was some resistance on the 
part of the Dauphin in some few parts of France, but King 
Henry beat it all down. 

And now, with his great possessions in France secured, 
and his beautiful wife to cheer him, and a son born to give 
him greater happiness, all appeared bright before him. But, 
in the fulness of his triumph and the height of his power, 
Death came upon him, and his day was done. When he fell 
ill at Vincennes, and found that he could not recover, he was 
very calm and quiet, and spoke serenely to those who wept 
around his bed. His wife and child, he said, he left to the 
loving care of his brother, the Duke of Bedford, and his other 
faithful nobles. He gave them his advice that England 
should establish a friendship with the new Duke of Burgundy, 
and offer him the regency of France ; that it should not set 
free the royal princes who had been taken at Agincourt ; and 
that, whatever quarrel might arise with France, England 
should never make peace without holding Normandy. Then, 
he laid down his head, and asked the attendant priests to 
chant the penitential psalms. Amid which solemn sounds, 
on the thirty-first of August, one thousand four hundred and 
twenty-two, in only the thirty-fourth year of his age and the 
tenth of his reign. King Henry the Fifth passed away. 



224 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Slowly and mournfully they carried his embalmed body in 
a procession of great state to Paris, and thence to Rouen 
where his Queen was : from whom the sad intelligence of his 
death was concealed until he had been dead some da}s. 
Thence, lying on a bed of crimson and gold, with a golden 
crown upon the head, and a golden ball and sceptre lying in 
the nerveless hands, thej^ carried it to Calais, with such a 
great retinue as seemed to dye the road black. The King of 
Scotland acted as chief mourner, all the Royal Household 
followed, the knights wore black armor and black plumes of 
feathers, crowds of men bore torches, making the night as 
light as day ; and the widowed Princess followed last of all. 
At Calais there was a fleet of ships to bring the funeral host 
to Dover. And so, by way of London Bridge, where the 
service for the dead was chanted as it passed along, they 
brought the body to Westminster Abbey, and there buried it 
with great respect. 



HENRY THE SIXTH. 225 



CHAPTER XXII. 

ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SIXTH. 

Part the First. 

It had been the wish of the late King, that while his infant 
son King Henry the Sixth, at this time only nine months 
olcb was under age, the Duke of Gloucester should be ap- 
pointed Regent. The English Parliament, however, preferred 
to appoint a Council of Regency, with the Duke of Bedford 
at its head : to be represented, in his absence only, by the 
Duke of Gloucester. The Parliament would seem to have 
been wise in this, for Gloucester soon showed himself to be 
ambitious and troublesome, and, in the gratification of his 
own personal schemes, gave dangerous offence to the Duke 
of Burgundy, which was with difficult}' adjusted. 

As that duke declined the Regency of France, it was be- 
stowed b} r the poor French King upon the Duke of Bedford. 
But, the French King dying within two months, the Dauphin 
instantly asserted his claim to the French throne, and was 
actually crowned under the title of Charles the Seventh. 
The Duke of Bedford, to be a match for him, entered into a 
friendly league with the Dukes of Burgundy and Brittany, 
and gave them his two sisters in marriage. War with France 
was immediately renewed, and the Perpetual Peace came to 
an untimely end. 

In the first campaign, the English, aided by this alliance, 
were speedily successful. As Scotland, however, had sent 
the French five thousand men, and might send more, or 
attack the North of England while England was busy with 

15 



226 A CHILD'S HISTOKY OF ENGLAND. 

France, it was considered that it would be a good thing to 
offer the Scottish King, James, who had been so long im- 
prisoned, his liberty, on his paying forty thousand pounds for 
his board and lodging during nineteen years, and engaging to 
forbid his subjects from serving under the flag of France. It 
is pleasant to know, not only that the amiable captive at last 
regained his freedom upon these terms, but that he married a 
noble English lad} T , with whom he had been long in love, and 
became an excellent King. I am afraid we have met with 
some Kings in this history, and shall meet with some more, 
who would have been very much the better, and would have 
left the world much happier, if they had been imprisoned 
nineteen years too. 

In the second campaign, the English gained a considerable 
victory at Verneuil, in a battle which was chiefly remarkable, 
otherwise, for their resorting to the odd expedient of tying 
their baggage-horses together by the heads and tails, and 
jumbling them up with the baggage, so as to convert them 
into a sort of live fortification — which was found useful to 
the troops, but which I should think was not agreeable to the 
horses. For three years afterwards very little was done, 
owing to both sides being too poor for war, which is a very 
expensive entertainment ; but, a council was then held in 
Paris, in which it was decided to lay siege to the town of Or- 
leans, which was a place of great importance to the Dauphin's 
cause. An English army of ten thousand men was despatched 
on this service, under the command of the Earl of Salisbury, 
a general of fame. . He being unfortunately killed early in 
the siege, the Earl of Suffolk took his place ; under whom 
(reinforced by Sir John Falstaff, who brought up four 
hundred wagons laden with salt herrings and other pro- 
visions for the troops, and, beating off the French who tried 
to intercept him, came victorious out of a hot skirmish, which 
was afterwards called in jest the battle of the Herrings), the 
town of Orleans was so completely hemmed in, that the be- 
sieged proposed to yield it up to their countryman the Duke 



HENRY THE SIXTH. 227 

of Burgund}\ The English general, however, replied that his 
English men had won it, so far, by their blood and valor,, and 
that his English men must have it. There seemed to be no 
hope for the town, or for the Dauphin, who was so dismayed 
that he even thought of flying to Scotland or to Spain — when 
a peasant girl rose up and changed the whole state of affairs. 
The story of this peasant girl I have now to tell. 



Part the Second. 

THE STORY OF JOAN OF ARC. 

I# a remote village among some wild hills in the province 
of Lorraine, there lived a countryman whose name was 
Jacques d'Arc. He had a daughter, Joan of Arc, who was 
at this time in her twentieth year. She had been a solitary 
girl from her childhood ; she had often tended sheep and cat- 
tle for whole days where no human figure was seen or human 
voice heard ; and she had often knelt, for hours together, in 
the gloonry empt}^ little village chapel, looking up at the altar 
and at the dim lamp burning before it, until she fancied that 
she saw shadowy figures standing there, and even that she 
heard them speak to her. The people in that part of France 
were ver} T ignorant and superstitious, and they had many 
ghostly tales to tell about what they had dreamed, and what 
they saw among the lonely hills when the clouds and the mists 
were resting on them. So the} T easily believed that Joan saw 
strange sights, and they whispered among themselves that 
angels and spirits talked to her. 

At last, Joan told her father that she had one day been 
surprised by a great unearthly light, and had afterwards 
heard a solemn voice, which said it was Saint Michael's 
voice, telling her that she was to go and help the Dauphin. 
Soon after this (she said), Saint Catherine and Saint Marga- 
ret had appeared to her with sparkling crowns upon their 



228 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

heads, and had encouraged her to be virtuous and resolute. 
These visions had returned sometimes ; but the Voices very 
often ; and the voices always said, " Joan, thou art appointed 
b} T Heaven to go and help the Dauphin ! " She almost always 
heard them while the chapel bells were ringing. 

There is no doubt now that Joan believed she saw and 
heard these things. It is very well known that such delusions 
are a disease which is not by airy means uncommon. It is 
probable enough that there were figures of Saint Michael, 
and Saint Catherine, and Saint Margaret, in the little chapel 
(where they would be very likely to have shining crowns upon 
their heads) , and that they first gave Joan the idea of those 
three personages. She had long been a moping, fanciful 
girl, and, though she was a very good girl, I dare say she was 
a little vain and wishful for notoriety. 

Her father, something wiser than his neighbors, said, " I 
tell thee, Joan, it is thy fancy. Thou hadst better have a 
kind husband to take care of thee, girl, and work to employ 
thy mind ! " But Joan told him in reply, that she had taken 
a vow never to have a husband, and that she must go as 
Heaven directed her, to help the Dauphin. 

It happened, unfortunately for her father's persuasions, 
and most unfortunately for the poor girl, too, that a part}' of 
the Dauphin's enemies found their way into the village while 
Joan's disorder was at this point, and burnt the chapel, and 
drove out the inhabitants. The cruelties she saw committed, 
touched Joan's heart and made her worse. She said that the 
voices and the figures were now continual^ with her ; that 
they told her she was the girl who, according to an old 
prophecy, was to deliver France ; and she must go and help 
the Dauphin, and must remain with him until he should be 
crowned at Rheims : and that she must travel a long wa} r to 
a certain lord named Baudricourt, who could and would, 
bring her into the Dauphin's presence. 

As her father still said, " I tell thee, Joan, it is thy fancy," 
she set off to find out this lord, accompanied by an uncle, a 



HENRY THE SIXTH. 229 

poor village wheelwright and cart-maker, who believed in the 
reality of her visions. They travelled a long wa}^ and went 
on and on, over a rough country, full of the Duke of Bur- 
gundy's men, and of all kinds of robbers and marauders, un- 
til they came to where this lord was. 

When his servants told him that there was a poor peasant 
girl named Joan of Arc, accompanied b}- nobody but an old 
village wheelwright and cart-maker, who wished to see him 
because she was commanded to help the Dauphin and save 
France, Bauclricourt burst out a-laughing, and bade them 
send the girl away. But, he soon heard so much about her 
lingering in the town, and praying in the churches, and see- 
ing visions, and doing harm to no one, that he sent for her, 
and / questioned her. As she said the same things after she 
had been well sprinkled with holy water as she had said be- 
fore the sprinkling, Bauclricourt began to think there might 
be something in it. At all events, he thought it worth while 
to send her on to the town of Chinon, where the Dauphin 
was. So, he bought her a horse, and a sword, and gave her 
two squires to conduct her. As the Voices had told Joan 
that she was to wear a man's dress, now, she put one on, and 
girded her sword to her side, and bound" spurs to her heels, 
and mounted her horse and rode away with her two squires. 
As to her uncle the wheelwright, he stood staring at his niece 
in wonder until she was out of sight — as well he might — 
and then went home again. The best place, too. 

Joan and her two squires rode on and on, until they came 
to Chinon, where she was, after some doubt, admitted into 
the Dauphin's presence. Picking him out immediately from all 
his court, she told him that she came commanded by Heaven 
to subdue his enemies and conduct him to his coronation at 
Rheims. She also told him (or he pretended so afterwards, 
to make the greater impression upon his soldiers) a num- 
ber of his secrets known only to himself, and, furthermore, 
she said there was an old, old sword in the Cathedral of 
Saint Catharine at Fierbois, marked with five old crosses 



230 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

on the blade, which Saint Catherine had ordered her to 
wear. 

Now, nobody knew anything about this old, old sword, but 
when the cathedral came to be examined — which was imme- 
diately done — there, sure enough, the sword was found ! 
The Dauphin then required a number of grave priests and 
bishops to give him their opinion whether the girl derived her 
power from good spirits or from evil spirits, which they held 
prodigiously long debates about, in the course of which sev- 
eral learned men fell fast asleep and snored loudly. At 
last, when one gruff old gentleman had said to Joan, " What 
language do your Voices speak ? " and when Joan had replied 
to the gruff old gentleman, " A pleasanter language than 
yours," they agreed that it was all correct, and that Joan of 
Arc was inspired from Heaven. This wonderful circumstance 
put new heart into the Dauphin's soldiers when they heard 
of it, and dispirited the English army, who took Joan for a 
witch. 

So Joan mounted horse again, and again rode on and on, 
until she came to Orleans. But she rode now, as never 
peasant girl had ridden yet. She rode upon a white war- 
horse, in a suit of glittering armor ; with the old, old sword 
from the cathedral, newly burnished, in her belt ; with a 
white flag carried before her, upon which were a picture of 
God, and the words Jesus Maria. In this splendid state, at 
the head of a great body of troops escorting provisions of all 
kinds for the starving inhabitants of Orleans, she appeared 
before that beleaguered city. 

When the people on the walls beheld her, they cried out, 
" The Maid is come ! The Maid of the Prophecy is come to 
deliver us ! " And this, and the sight of the Maid fighting at 
the head of their men, made the French so bold, and made 
the English so fearful, that the English line of forts was soon 
broken, the troops and provisions were got into the town, and 
Orleans was saved. 

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HENRY THE SIXTH. 231 

within the walls for a few days, and caused letters to be 
thrown over, ordering Lord Suffolk and his Englishmen to 
depart from before the town according to the will of Heaven. 
As the English general very positively declined to believe that 
Joan knew anything about the will of Heaven (which did not 
mend the matter with his soldiers, for they stupidly said if she 
were not inspired she was a witch, and it was of no use to 
fight against a witch), she mounted her white war-horse 
again, and ordered her white banner to advance. 

The besiegers held the bridge, and some strong towers 
upon the bridge ; and here the Maid of Orleans attacked 
them. The fight was fourteen hours long. She planted a 
scaling ladder with her own hands, and mounted a tower wall, 
but was struck by an English arrow in the neck, and fell into 
the trench. She was carried away and the arrow was taken 
out, during which operation she screamed and cried with the 
pain, as an}' other girl might have done; but presently she 
said that the Voices were speaking to her and soothing her to 
rest. After a while, she got up, and was again foremost in 
the fight. When the English who had seen her fall and sup- 
posed her dead, saw this, they were troubled with the stran- 
gest fears, and some of them cried out that they beheld Saint 
Michael on a white horse (probably Joan herself) fighting for 
the French. They lost the bridge, and lost the towers, and 
next day set their chain of forts on fire, and left the place. 

But as Lord Suffolk himself retired no farther than the 
town of Jargeau, which was only a few miles off, the Maid of 
Orleans besieged him there, and he was taken prisoner. As 
the white banner scaled the wall, she was struck upon the 
head with a stone, and was again tumbled down into the ditch ; 
but, she only cried all the more, as she la} 7 there, " On, on, 
my countrymen ! And fear nothing, for the Lord hath de- 
livered them into our hands ! " After this new success of the 
Maid's, several other fortresses and places which had pre- 
viously held out against the Dauphin were delivered up 
without a battle ; and at Patay she defeated the remainder of 



232 A CHILD'S HISTOKY OF ENGLAND. 

the English army, and set up her victorious white banner on 
a field where twelve hundred Englishmen lay dead. 

She now urged the Dauphin (who always kept out of the 
way when there was any fighting) to proceed to Bheims, as 
the first part of her mission was accomplished ; and to com- 
plete the whole by being crowned there. The Dauphin was 
in no particular hurry to do this, as Rheims was a long way 
off, and the English and the Duke of Burgundy were still 
strong in the country through which the road lay. However, 
they set forth, with ten thousand men, and again the Maid of 
Orleans rode on and on, upon her white war-horse, and in 
her shining armor. Whenever they came to a town which 
yielded readily, the soldiers believed in her ; but, whenever 
they came to a town which gave them any trouble, they began 
to murmur that she was an impostor. The latter was partic- 
ularly the case at Troyes, which finally yielded, through the 
persuasion of one Richard, a friar of the place. Friar Rich- 
ard was in the old doubt about the Maid of Orleans, until he 
had sprinkled her well with holy water, and had also well 
sprinkled the threshold of the gate by which she came into 
the city. Finding that it made no change in her or the gate, 
he said, as the other grave old gentlemen had said, that it 
was all right, and became her great ally. 

So, at last, and by dint of riding on and on, the Maid of 
Orleans, and the Dauphin, and the ten thousand sometimes 
believing and sometimes unbelieving men, came to Rheims. 
And in the great cathedral of Rheims, the Dauphin actually 
was crowned Charles the Seventh in a great assembly of the 
people. Then, the Maid, who with her white banner stood 
beside the King in that hour of his triumph, kneeled down 
upon the pavement at his feet, and said, with tears, that what 
she had been inspired to do, was done, and that the only 
recompense she asked for, was, that she should now have 
leave to go back to her distant home, and her sturdily incred- 
ulous father, and her first simple escort the village wheel- 
Wright and cart-maker. But the King said "No!" and 



HENRY THE SIXTH. 233 

made her and her family as noble as a King could, and settled 
upon her the income of a Count. 

Ah ! happy had it been for the Maid of Orleans, if she had 
resumed her rustic dress that day, and had gone home to the 
little chapel and the wild hills, and had forgotten all these 
things, and had been a good man's wife, and had heard no 
stranger voices than the voices of little children ! 

It was not to be, and she continued helping the King (she 
did a world for him, in alliance with Friar Richard), and 
trying to improve the lives of the coarse soldiers, and leading 
a religious, an unselfish, and a modest life, herself, beyond 
any doubt. Still, many times she prayed the King to let her 
go home ; and once she even took off her bright armor and 
hung it up in a church, meaning never to wear it more. But, 
the King alwa} r s won her back again — while she was of any 
use to him — and so she went on and on and on, to her doom. 

When the Duke of Bedford, who was a very able man, 
began to be active for England, and, by bringing the war 
back into France and by holding the Duke of Burgundy to 
his faith, to distress and disturb Charles very much, Charles 
sometimes asked the Maid of Orleans what the Voices said 
about it? But, the Voices had become (very like ordinary 
voices in perplexed times) contradictory and confused, so 
that now the}' said one thing, and now said another, and the 
Maid lost credit every clay. Charles marched on Paris, which 
was opposed to him, and attacked the suburb of Saint Honore. 
In this fight, being again struck down into the ditch, she was 
abandoned by the whole army. She lay unaided among a 
heap of dead, and crawled out how she could. Then, some 
of her believers went over to an opposition Maid, Catherine 
of La Iiochelle, who said she was inspired to tell where there 
were treasures of buried money — though she never did — and 
then Joan accidentally broke the old, old sword, and others 
said that her power was broken with it. Finally, at the siege 
of Compiegne, held by the Duke of Burgund} r , where she 
did valiant service, she was basely left alone in a retreat, 



234 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

though facing about and fighting to the last ; and an archer 
pulled her off her horse. 

the uproar that was made, and the thanksgivings that 
were sung, about the capture of this one poor country-girl ! 
O the way in which she was demanded to be tried for sorcery 
and heresy, and anything else you like, by the Inquisitor- 
General of France, and by this great man, and by that great 
man, until it is wearisome to think of! She was bought at 
last by the Bishop of Beauvais for ten thousand francs, and 
was shut up in her narrow prison : plain Joan of Arc again, 
and Maid of Orleans no more. 

1 should never have done if I were to tell jon how they 
had Joan out to examine her, and cross-examine her, and re- 
examine her, and worry her into saying anything and every- 
thing ; and how all sorts of scholars and doctors bestowed 
their utmost tediousness upon her. Sixteen times she was 
brought out and shut up again, and worried, and entrapped, 
and argued with, until she was heart-sick of the dreary 
business. On the last occasion of this kind she was brought 
into a burial-place at Rouen, dismally decorated with a scaffold, 
and a stake and faggots, and the executioner, and a pulpit 
with a friar therein, and an awful sermon ready. It is very 
affecting to know that even at that pass the poor girl honored 
the mean vermin of a King, who had so used her for his 
purposes and so abandoned her ; and, that while she had been 
regardless of reproaches heaped upon herself, she spoke out 
courageously for him. 

It was natural in one so young to hold to life. To save 
her life, she signed a declaration prepared for her — signed 
it with a cross, for she couldn't write — that all her visions 
and Voices had come from the Devil. Upon her recanting 
the past, and protesting that she would never wear a man's 
dress in future, she was condemned to imprisonment for life, 
" on the bread of sorrow and the water of affliction." 

But, on the bread of sorrow and the water of affliction, the 
visions and the Voices soon returned. It was quite natural 



HENRY THE SIXTH. 235 

that they should do so, for that kind of disease is much 
aggravated b}^ fasting, loneliness, and anxiety of mind. It 
was not only got out of Joan that she considered herself 
inspired again, but, she was taken in a man's dress, which 
had been left — to entrap her — in her prison, and which she 
put on, in her solitude ; perhaps, in remembrance of her past 
glories, perhaps, because the imaginary Voices told her. For 
this relapse into the sorcery and heresy and anything else 
you like, she was sentenced to be burnt to death. And, in 
the market-place of Rouen, in the hideous dress which the 
monks had invented for such spectacles ; with priests and 
bishops sitting in a gallery looking on, though some had the 
Christian grace to go away, unable to endure the infamous 
scene : this shrieking; omd — last seen amidst the smoke and 



*© o 



fire, holding a crucifix between her hands ; last heard, calling 
upon Christ — was burnt to ashes. They threw her ashes 
into the river Seine ; but they will rise against her murderers 
on the last day. 

From the moment of her capture, neither the French King 
nor one single man in all his court raised a finger to save her. 
It is no defence of them that they may have never really 
believed in her, or that the}^ may have won her victories by 
their skill and bravery. The more the} 7 pretended to believe 
in her, the more they had caused her to believe in herself ; 
and she had ever been true to them, ever brave, ever no- 
bly devoted. But, it is no wonder, that the}', who were 
in all things false to themselves, false to one another, false to 
their country, false to Heaven, false to Earth, should be mon- 
sters of ingratitude and treacher}' to a helpless peasant girl. 

In the picturesque old town of Rouen, where weeds and 
grass grow high on the cathedral towers, and the venerable 
Norman streets are still warm in the blessed sunlight though 
the monkish fires that once gleamed horribly upon them have 
long grown cold, there is a statue of Joan of Arc, in the 
scene of her last agony, the square to which she has given 
its present name. I know some statues of modern times — 



236 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

even in the World's metropolis, I think — which commemo- 
rate less constancy, less earnestness, smaller claims upon the 
world's attention, and much greater impostors. 



Part the Third. 

Bad deeds seldom prosper, happily for mankind ; and the 
English cause gained no advantage from the cruel death of 
Joan of Arc. For a long time, the war went heavily on. 
The Duke of Bedford died ; the alliance with the Duke of 
Burgundy was broken ; and Lord Talbot became a great 
general on the English side in France. But two of the con- 
sequences of wars are, Famine — because the people can- 
not peacefully cultivate the ground — and Pestilence, which 
comes of want, misery, and suffering. Both these horrors 
broke out in both countries, and lasted for two wretched 
years. Then, the war went on again, and came b} r slow 
degrees to be so badly conducted by the English govern- 
ment, that, within twenty years from the execution of the 
Maid of Orleans, of all the great French conquests, the town 
of Calais alone remained in English hands. 

While these victories and defeats were taking place in the 
course of time, many strange things happened at home. The 
3 T oung King, as he grew up, proved to be very unlike his 
great father, and showed himself a miserable puny creature. 
There was no harm in him — he had a great aversion to 
shedding blood : which was something — but, he was a weak, 
silly, helpless .young man, and a mere shuttlecock to the 
great lordly battledores about the Court. 

Of these battledores, Cardinal Beaufort, a relation of the 
King, and the Duke of Gloucester, were at first the most 
powerful. The Duke of Gloucester had a wife, who was 
nonsensically accused of practising witchcraft to cause the 
King's death and lead to her husband's coming to the throne, 



HENRY THE SIXTH. 237 

he being the next heir. She was charged with having, by 
the help of a ridiculous old woman named Margery (who 
was called a witch) , made a little waxen doll in the King's 
likeness, and put it before a slow fire that it might gradually 
melt awa} r . It was supposed, in such cases, that the death 
of the person whom the doll was made to represent, was sure 
to happen. Whether the duchess was as ignorant as the 
rest of them, and really did make such a doll with such an 
intention, I don't know ; but, you and I know very well that 
she might have made a thousand dolls, if she had been stupid 
enough, and might have melted them all, without hurting the 
King or anybody else. However, she was tried for it, and 
so was old Margeiy, and so was one of the duke's chaplains, 
who was charged with having assisted them. Both he and 
Margery were put to death, and the duchess, after being 
taken on foot and bearing a lighted candle, three times round 
the City, as a penance, was imprisoned for life. The duke 
himself took all this pretty quietty, and made as little stir 
about the matter as if he were rather glad to be rid of the 
duchess. 

But he was not destined to keep himself out of trouble 
long. The royal shuttlecock being three-and-twenty, the 
battledores were very anxious to get him married. The Duke 
of Gloucester wanted him to marry a daughter of the Count 
of Armagnac ; but, the Cardinal and the Earl of Suffolk were 
all for Margaret, the daughter of the King of Sicily, who 
they knew was a resolute ambitious woman and would govern 
the King as she chose. To make friends with this lad}^, the 
Earl of Suffolk, who went over to arrange the match, con- 
sented to accept her for the King's wife without any fortune, 
and even to give up the two most valuable possessions Eng- 
land then had in France. So, the marriage was arranged, on 
terms very advantageous to the lad} T ; and Lord Suffolk 
brought her to England, and she was married at Westmin- 
ster. On what pretence this queen and her party charged the 
Duke of Gloucester with high treason within a couple of 



238 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

years, it is impossible to make out, the matter is so confused ; 
but, they pretended that the King's life was in danger, and 
they took the duke prisoner. A fortnight afterwards, he was 
found dead in bed (they said) , and his body was shown to 
the people, and Lord Suffolk came in for the best part of his 
estates. You know by this time how strangely liable state 
prisoners were to sudden death. 

If Cardinal Beaufort had an} 7 hand in this matter, it did 
him no good, for he died within six weeks ; thinking it very 
hard and curious — at eighty years old ! — that he could not 
live to be Pope. 

This was the time when England had completed her loss of 
all her great French conquests. The people charged the loss 
principally upon the Earl of Suffolk, now a duke, who had 
made those easy terms about the Eoyal Marriage, and who, 
they believed, had even been bought by France. So he was 
impeached as a traitor, on a great number of charges, but 
chiefly on accusations of having aided the French King, and 
of designing to make his own son King of England. The 
Commons and the people being violent against him, the King 
was made (by his friends) to interpose to save him, by ban- 
ishing him for five years, and proroguing the Parliament. The 
duke had much ado to escape from a London mob, two thou- 
sand strong, who la}' in wait for him in St. Giles's fields ; 
but, he got down to his own estates in Suffolk, and sailed 
away from Ipswich. Sailing across the Channel, he sent 
into Calais to know if he might land there ; but, they kept 
his boat and men in the harbor, until an English ship, carry- 
ing a hundred and fifty men and called the Nicholas of the 
Tower, came alongside his little vessel, and ordered him on 
board. "Welcome, traitor, as men say," was the captain's 
grim and not very respectful salutation. He was kept on 
board, a prisoner, for eight- and-forty hours, and then a small 
boat appeared rowing toward the ship. As this boat came 
nearer, it was seen to have in it a block, a rusty sword, 
and an executioner in a black mask. The duke was handed 



HENRY THE SIXTH. 239 

down into it, and there his head was cut off with six strokes 
of the rust}' sword. Then, the little boat rowed away to 
Dover beach, where the body w T as cast out, and left until 
the duchess claimed it. By whom, high in authority, this 
murder was committed, has never appeared. No one was 
ever punished for it. 

There now arose in Kent an Irishman, who gave himself 
the name of Mortimer, but whose real name was Jack Cade. 
Jack, in imitation of Wat Tyler, though he was a very 
different and inferior sort of man, addressed the Kentish men 
upon their wrongs, occasioned by the bad government of 
England, among so many battledores and such a poor shut- 
tlecock ; and the Kentish men rose up to the number of 
twenty thousand. Their place of assembly was Blackheath, 
where, headed by Jack, they put forth two papers, which 
they called " The Complaint of the Commons of Kent," and 
"The Requests of the Captain of the Great Assembly in 
Kent." They then retired to Sevenoaks. The royal army 
coming up with them here, the}' beat it and killed their gen- 
eral. Then, Jack dressed himself in the dead general's 
armor, and led his men to London. 

Jack passed into the City from Southwark, over the bridge, 
and entered it in triumph, giving the strictest orders to his 
men not to plunder. Having made a show of his forces 
there, while the citizens looked on quietly, he went back into 
Southwark in good order, and passed the night. Next day , 
he came back again, having got hold in the meantime of Lord 
Sa} 7 , an unpopular nobleman. Sa} T s Jack to the Lord Mayor 
and judges : " Will you be so good as to make a tribunal in 
Guildhall, and try me this nobleman?" The court being 
hastily made, he was found guilt}', and Jack and his men cut 
his head off on Cornhill. They also cut off the head of his 
son-in-law, and then went back in good order to Southwark 
again. 

But, although the citizens could bear the beheading of an 
unpopular lord, the}' could not bear to have their houses pil- 



240 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

laged. And it did so happen that Jack, after dinner — per- 
haps he had drunk a little too much — began to plunder the 
house where he lodged ; upon which, of course, his men be- 
gan to imitate him. Wherefore, the Londoners took counsel 
with Lord Scales, who had a thousand soldiers in the Tower ; 
and defended London Bridge, and kept Jack and his people 
out. This advantage gained, it was resolved by divers great 
men to divide Jack's army in the old way, by making a great 
many promises on behalf of the state, that were never in- 
tended to be performed. This did divide them ; some of 
Jack's men saying that they ought to take the conditions 
which were offered, and others saj'ing that they ought not, for 
they were only a snare ; some going home at once ; others 
staying where they were ; and all doubting and quarrelling 
among themselves. 

Jack, who was in two minds about fighting or accepting a 
pardon, and who indeed did both, saw at last that there was 
nothing to expect from his men, and that it was very likely 
some of them would deliver him up and get a reward of a 
thousand marks, which was offered for his apprehension. 
So, after the} 7 had travelled and quarrelled all the wa}- from 
Southwark to Blackheath, and from Blackheath to Rochester, 
he mounted a good horse and galloped awa}^ into Sussex. 
But there galloped after him, on a better horse, one Alexan- 
der Iden, who came up with him, had a hard fight with him, 
and killed him. Jack's head was set aloft on London Bridge, 
with the face looking towards Blackheath, where he had 
raised his flag ; and Alexander Iden got the thousand 
marks. 

It is supposed by some, that the Duke of York, who had 
been removed from a high post abroad through the Queen's 
influence, and sent out of the way, to govern Ireland, was at 
the bottom of this rising of Jack and his men, because he 
wanted to trouble the government. He claimed (though not 
3 T et publicly) to have a better right to the throne than Henry 
of Lancaster, as one of the family of the Earl of March, 



HENRY THE SIXTH. 241 

whom Hemy the Fourth had set aside. Touching this claim, 
which, being through female relationship, was not according 
to the usual descent, it is enough to say that Henry the 
Fourth was the free choice of the people and the Parliament, 
and that his family had now reigned undisputed for sixty 
years. The memory of Henry the Fifth was so famous, and 
the English people loved it so much, that the Duke of York's 
claim would, perhaps, never have been thought of (it would 
have been so hopeless) but for the unfortunate circumstance 
of the present King's being by this time quite an idiot, and 
the country very ill governed. These two circumstances 
gave the Duke of York a power he could not otherwise have 
had. 

Whether the Duke knew anything of Jack Cade, or not, 
he came over from Ireland while Jack's head was on London 
Bridge ; being secretly advised that the Queen was setting 
up his enemy, the Duke of Somerset, against him. He went 
to Westminster, at the head of four thousand men, and on 
his knees before the King, represented to him the bad state 
of the country, and petitioned him to summon a Parliament 
to consider it. This the King promised. When the Parlia- 
ment was summoned, the Duke of York accused the Duke 
of Somerset, and the Duke of Somerset accused the Duke of 
York ; and, both in and out of Parliament, the followers 
of each party were full of violence and hatred towards the 
other. At length the Duke of York put himself at the head 
of a large force of his tenants, and, in arms, demanded the 
reformation of the Government. Being shut out of London, 
he encamped at Dartford, and the 103'al army encamped at 
Blackheath. According as either side triumphed, the Duke 
of York was arrested, or the Duke of Somerset was arrested. 
The trouble ended, for the moment, in the Duke of York 
renewing his oath of allegiance, and going in peace to one of 
his own castles. 

Half a 3 T ear afterwards the Queen gave birth to a son, who 
was very ill received by the people, and not believed to be 

16 



242 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

the son of the King. It shows the Duke of York to have 
been a moderate man, unwilling to involve England in new 
troubles, that he did not take advantage of the general dis- 
content at this time, but realty acted for the public good. 
He was made a member of the cabinet, and the King being 
now so much worse that he could not be carried about and 
shown to the people with any decency, the Duke was made 
Lord Protector of the kingdom, until the King should re- 
cover, or the Prince should come of age. At the same time 
the Duke of Somerset was committed to the Tower. So, 
now the Duke of Somerset was down, and the Duke of York 
was up. By the end of the year, however, the King recov- 
ered his memory and some spark of sense ; upon which the 
Queen used her power — which recovered with him — to get 
the Protector disgraced, and her favorite released. So now 
the Duke of York was down, and the Duke of Somerset 
was up. 

These ducal ups and downs gradually separated the whole 
nation into the two parties of York and Lancaster, and led 
to those terrible civil wars long known as the Wars of the 
Red and White Roses, because the red rose was the badge of 
the House of Lancaster, and the white rose was the badge 
of the House of York. 

The Duke of York, joined by some other powerful noblemen 
of the White Rose party, and leading a small army, met the 
King with another small army at St. Alban's, and demanded 
that the Duke of Somerset should be given up. The poor 
King, being made to say in answer that he would sooner die, 
was instantly attacked. The Duke of Somerset was killed, 
and the King himself was wounded in the neck, and took 
refuge in the house of a poor tanner. Whereupon, the 
Duke of York went to him, led him with great submission to 
the Abbey, and said he was very sorry for what had happened. 
Having now the King in lib possession, he got a Parlia- 
ment summoned and himself once more made Protector, but, 
only for a few months ; for, on the King getting a little bet- 



HENRY THE SIXTH. . 243 

ter again, the Queen and her party got him into their posses- 
sion, and disgraced the Duke once more. So, now the Duke 
of York was down again. 

Some of the best men in power, seeing the danger of these 
constant changes, tried even then to prevent the Red and the 
White Rose Wars. -They brought about a great council in 
London between the two parties. The White Roses assem- 
bled in Blackfriars, the Red Roses in Whitefriars ; and some 
good priests communicated between them, and made the pro- 
ceedings known at evening to the King and the judges. 
They ended in a peaceful agreement that there should be no 
more quarrelling ; and there was a great royal procession to 
St. Paul's, in which the Queen walked arm-in-arm with her 
o|d enemy, the Duke of York, to show the people how com- 
fortable they all were. This state of peace lasted half a year, 
when a dispute between the Earl of Warwick (one of the 
Duke's powerful friends) and some of the King's servants at 
Court, led to an attack upon that Earl — who was a White 
Rose — and to a sudden breaking out of all old animosities. 
So, here were greater ups and downs than ever. 

There were even greater ups and downs than these, soon 
after. After various battles, the Duke of York fled to Ire- 
laud, and his son the Earl of March to Calais, with their 
friends the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick ; and a Parliament 
was held declaring them all traitors. Little the worse for 
this, the Earl of Warwick presently came back, landed in 
Kent, was joined b} T the Archbishop of Canterbury and other 
powerful noblemen and gentlemen, engaged the King's forces 
at Northampton, signally defeated them, and took the King 
himself prisoner, who was found in his tent. Warwick would 
have been glad, I dare say, to have taken the Queen and 
Prince too, but they escaped into Wales and thence into Scot- 
land. 

The King was carried by the victorious force straight to 
London, and made to call a new Parliament, which immedi- 
ately declared that the Duke of York and those other noble- 



244 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

men were not traitors, but excellent subjects. Then, back 
comes the Duke from Ireland at the head of five hundred 
horsemen, rides from London to Westminster, and enters the 
House of Lords. There he laid his hand upon the cloth of 
gold which covered the empty throne, as if he had half a 
mind to sit down in it — but he did not. On the Archbishop 
of Canterbury asking him if he would visit the King, who was 
in his palace close by, he replied, ' ' I know no one in this 
country, my lord, who ought not to visit me." None of the 
lords present, spoke a single word ; so, the duke went out as 
he had come in, established himself royally in the King's pal- 
ace, and, six days afterwards, sent in to the Lords a formal 
statement of his claim to the throne. The lords went to the 
King on this momentous subject, and after a great deal of 
discussion, in which the judges and the other law officers were 
afraid to give an opinion on either side, the question was com- 
promised. It was agreed that the present King should retain 
the crown for his life, and that it should then pass to the 
Duke of York and his heirs. 

But, the resolute Queen, determined on asserting her son's 
right, would hear of no such thing. She came from Scotland 
to the north of England, where several powerful lords armed 
in her cause. The Duke of York, for his part, set off with 
some five thousand men, a little time before Christmas Day, 
one thousand four hundred and sixty, to give her battle. He 
lodged at Sandal Castle, near "Wakefield, and the Red Roses 
defied him to come out on Wakefield Green, and fight them 
then and there. His generals said, he had best wait until his 
gallant son, the Earl of March, came up with his power ; but 
he was determined to accept the challenge. He did so, in an 
evil hour. He was hotly pressed on all sides, two thousand 
of his men lay dead on Wakefield Green, and he himself was 
taken prisoner. They set him down in mock state on an ant- 
hill, and twisted grass about his head, and pretended to pay 
court to him on their knees, sajing, " O King, without a 
kingdom, and Prince without a people, we hope your gracious 



HENRY THE SIXTH. 245 

Majesty is very well and happy ! " The}' did worse than 
this ; they cut his head off, and handed it on a pole to the 
Queen, who laughed with delight when she saw it (you 
recollect their walking so religiously and comfortably to St. 
Paul's ! ) , and had it fixed, with a paper crown upon its head, 
on the walls of York. The Earl of Salisbury lost his head, 
too ; and the Duke of York's second son, a handsome boy 
who was flying with his tutor over Wakefield Bridge, was 
stabbed in the heart by a murderous lord — Lord Clifford by 
name — whose father had been killed by the White Roses in the 
fight at St. Alban's. There was awful sacrifice of life in this 
battle, for no quarter was given, and the Queen was wild for 
revenge. When men unnaturally fight against their own 
coun toymen, the}' are always observed to be more unnaturally 
cruel and filled with rage than they are against any other 
enem}'. 

But, Lord Clifford had stabbed the second son of the Duke 
of York — not the first. The eldest son, Edward Earl of 
March, was at Gloucester ; and, vowing vengeance for the 
death of his father, his brother, and their faithful friends, 
he began to march against the Queen. He had to turn and 
fight a great body of Welsh and Irish first, who worried his 
advance. These he defeated in a great fight at Mortimer's 
Cross, near Hereford, where he beheaded a number of the 
Red Roses taken in battle, in retaliation for the beheading of 
the White Roses at Wakefield. The Queen had the next turn 
of beheading. Having moved towards London, and falling 
in, between St. Alban's and Barnet, with the Earl of War- 
wick and the Duke of Norfolk, White Roses both, who were 
there with an army to oppose her, and had got the King with 
them ; she defeated them with great loss, and struck off the 
heads of two prisoners of note, who were in the King's tent 
with him, and to whom the King had promised his protection. 
Her triumph, however, was very short. She had no treasure, 
and her arnry subsisted by plunder. This caused them to be 
hated and dreaded by the people, and particularly by the 



246 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

London people, who were wealthy. As soon as the London- 
ers heard that Edward, Earl of March, united with the Earl 
of Warwick, was advancing towards the city, they refused to 
send the Queen supplies, and made a great rejoicing. 

The Queen and her men retreated with all speed, and Ed- 
ward and Warwick came on, greeted with loud acclamations 
on every side. The courage, beauty, and virtues of young 
Edward could not be sufficiently praised by the whole people. 
He rode into London like a conqueror, and met with an en- 
thusiastic welcome. A few days afterwards, Lord Falcon- 
bridge and the Bishop of Exeter assembled the citizens in St. 
John's Field, Clerkenwell, and asked them if the}' would have 
Heniy of Lancaster for their King ? To this they all roared, 
" No, no, no ! " and " King Edward ! King Edward ! " Then, 
said those noblemen, would they love and serve young Ed- 
ward? To this the}' all cried, "Yes, yes !" and threw up 
their caps, and clapped their hands, and cheered tremen- 
dously. 

Therefore, it was declared that by joining the Queen and 
not protecting those two prisoners of note, Henry of Lan- 
caster had forfeited the crown ; and Edward of York was 
proclaimed King. He made a great speech to the applauding 
people at Westminster, and sat down as sovereign of Eng- 
land on that throne, on the golden covering of which his 
father — worthy of a better fate than the blood} 7 axe which 
cut the thread of so many lives in England, through so many 
years — had laid his hand. 



EDWARD THE FOURTH. 247 



CHAPTER XXITI. 

ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FOURTH. 

King Edward the Fourth was not quite twenty- one 
3*ears of age when he took that unquiet seat upon the throne 
of England. The Lancaster party, the Red Roses, were then 
assembling in great numbers near York, and it was necessary 
to/give them battle instantly. But, the stout Earl of War- 
wick leading for the young King, and the 3*oung King himself 
closely following him, and the English people crowding round 
the Royal standard, the White and the Red Roses met, on a 
wild March day when the snow was falling heavily, at Tow- 
ton ; and there such a furious battle raged between them, 
that the total loss amounted to forty thousand men — all 
Englishmen, fighting, upon English ground, against one an- 
other. The young King gained the day. took down the heads 
of his father and brother from the walls of York, and put up 
the heads of some of the most famous noblemen engaged in 
the battle on the other side. Then, he went to London and 
was crowned with great splendor. 

A new Parliament met. No fewer than one hundred and 
fifty of the principal noblemen and gentlemen on the Lancas- 
ter side were declared traitors, and the King — who had very 
little humanity, though he was handsome in person and 
agreeable in manners — resolved to do all he could to pluck 
up the Red Rose root and branch. 

Queen Margaret, however, was still active for her young 
son. She obtained help from Scotland and from Normandy, 
and took several important English castles. But, Warwick 
soon retook them ; the Queen lost all her treasure on board 



248 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

ship in a great storm ; and both she and her son suffered 
great misfortunes. Once, in the winter weather, as they 
were riding through a forest, they were attacked and plun- 
dered b}^ a party of robbers ; and, when they had escaped 
from these men and were passing alone and on foot through 
a thick dark part of the wood, they came, all at once, upon 
another robber. So the Queen, with a stout heart, took the 
little Prince by the hand, and going straight up to that 
robber, said to him, " My friend, this is the young son of 
your lawful King ! I confide him to your care." The rob- 
ber was surprised, but took the boy in his arms, and faith- 
fully restored him and his mother to their friends. In the 
end, the Queen's soldiers being beaten and dispersed, she 
went abroad again, and kept quiet for the present. 

Now, all this time, the deposed King Henry was concealed 
by a Welsh knight, who kept him close in his castle. But, 
next year, the Lancaster party recovering their spirits, raised 
a large body of men, and called him out of his retirement, to 
put him at their head. They were joined by some powerful 
noblemen who had sworn fidelity to the new King, but who 
were ready, as usual, to break their oaths, whenever they 
thought there was anything to be got by it. One of the 
worst things in the history of the war of the Red and White 
Roses, is the ease with which these noblemen, who should 
have set an example of honor to the people, left either side 
as the}' took slight offence, or were disappointed in their 
greedy expectations, and joined the other. Well ! War- 
wick's brother soon beat the Lancastrians, and the false 
noblemen, being taken, were beheaded without a moment's 
loss of time. The deposed King had a narrow escape ; three 
of his servants were taken, and one of them bore his cap of 
estate, which was set with pearls, and embroidered with two 
golden crowns. However, the head to which the cap be- 
longed, got safety into Lancashire, and lay pretty quietly 
there (the people in the secret being very true) for more than 
a year. At length, an old monk gave such intelligence as 



EDWARD THE FOURTH. 249 

led to Henry's being taken while he was sitting at dinner in 
a place called Waclclington Hall. He was immediately sent 
to London, and met at Islington by the Earl of Warwick, by 
whose directions he was put upon a horse, with his legs tied 
under it, and paraded three times round the pillory. Then, 
he was carried off to the Tower, where they treated him well 
enough. 

The White Eose being so triumphant, the young King 
abandoned himself entirely to pleasure, and led a jovial life. 
But, thorns were springing up under his bed of roses, as he 
soon found out. For, having been privately married to 
Elizabeth Woodville, a young widow lady, very beautiful 
and very captivating ; and at last resolving to make his secret 
known, and to declare her his Queen ; he gave some offence to 
the Earl of Warwick, who was usually called the King-Maker, 
because of his power and influence, and because of his having 
lent such great help to placing Edward on the throne. This 
offence was not lessened by the jealousy with which the Nevil 
family (the Earl of Warwick's) , regarded the promotion of the 
Woodville family. For, the young Queen was so bent on 
providing for her relations, that she made her father an earl 
and a great officer of state ; married her five sisters to young 
noblemen of the highest rank ; and provided for her younger 
brother, a young man of twenty, by marrying him to an im- 
mensely rich old duchess of eighty. The Earl of Warwick 
took all this pretty graciously for a man of his proud temper, 
until the question arose to whom the King's sister, Marga- 
ret, should be married. The Earl of Warwick said, "To 
one of the French King's sons," and was allowed to go over to 
the French King to make friendly proposals for that purpose, 
and to hold all manner of friendly interviews with him. But, 
while he was so engaged, the Woodville party married the 
young lady to the Duke of Burgundy ! Upon this he came 
back in great rage and scorn, and shut himself up discon- 
tented in his Castle of Middleham. 

A reconciliation, though not a veiy sincere one, was 



250 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

patched up between the Earl of Warwick and the King, and 
lasted until the Earl married his daughter, against the King's 
wishes, to the Duke of Clarence. While the marriage was 
being celebrated at Calais, the people in the north of Eng- 
land, where the influence of the Nevil family was strongest, 
broke out into rebellion ; their complaint was, that England 
was oppressed and plundered by the Woodville family whom 
the}^ demanded to have removed from power. As they were 
joined by great numbers of people, and as they openly 
declared that they were supported by the Earl of Warwick, 
the King did not know what to do. At last, as he wrote 
to the earl beseeching his aid, he and his new son-in-law 
came over to England, and began to arrange the business by 
shutting the King up in Middleham Castle in the safe keep- 
ing of the Archbishop of York ; so England was not onlj' in 
the strange position of having two kings at once, but they 
were both prisoners at the same time. 

Even as yet, however, the King-Maker was so far true to 
the King, that he dispersed a new rising of the Lancastrians, 
took their leader prisoner, and brought him to the King, who 
ordered him to be immediately executed. He presently 
allowed the King to return to London, and there innumera- 
ble pledges of forgiveness and friendship were exchanged 
between them, and between the N evils and the Woodvilles : 
the King's eldest daughter was promised in marriage to the 
heir of the Nevil family ; and more friendly oaths were 
sworn, and more friendly promises made, than this book 
would hold. 

They lasted about three months. At the end of that time, 
the Archbishop of York made a feast for the King, the Earl 
of Warwick, and the Duke of Clarence, at his house, the 
Moor, in Hertfordshire. The King was washing his hands 
before supper, when some one whispered him that a bod}' of 
a hundred men were tying in ambush outside the house. 
Whether this were true or untrue, the King took fright, 
mounted his horse, and rode through the dark night to Wind- 



EDWAED THE FOURTH. 251 

sor Castle. Another reconciliation was patched up between 
him and the King-Maker, but it was a short one, and it was 
the last. A new rising took place in Lincolnshire, and the 
King marched to repress it. Having done so, he proclaimed 
that both the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Clarence 
were traitors, who had secretly assisted it, and who had 
been prepared publicly to join it on the following day. In 
these dangerous circumstances they both took ship and sailed 
away to the French court. 

And here a meeting took place between the Earl of War- 
wick and his old enemy, the Dowager Queen Margaret, 
through whom his father had had his head struck off, and to 
whom he had been a bitter foe. But, now, when he said 
that he had done with the ungrateful and perfidious Edward 
of York, and that henceforth he devoted himself to the res- 
toration of the House of Lancaster, either in the person of 
her husband or of her little son, she embraced him as if he 
had ever been her clearest friend. She did more than that ; 
she married her son to his second daughter, the Lady Anne. 
However agreeable this marriage was to the new friends, it 
was very disagreeable to the Duke of Clarence, who per- 
ceived that his father-in-law, the King-Maker, would never 
make him King, now. So, being but a weak-minded young 
traitor, possessed of very little worth or sense, he readily 
listened to an artful court lady sent over for the purpose, 
and promised to turn traitor once more, and go over to his 
brother, King Edward, when a fitting opportunity should 
come. 

The Earl of Warwick, knowing nothing of this, soon re- 
deemed his promise to the Dowager Queen Margaret, hj in- 
vading England and landing at Plymouth, where he instantly 
proclaimed King Henry, and summoned all Englishmen be- 
tween the ages of sixteen and sixt}^ to join his banner. 
Then, with his army increasing as he marched along, he 
went northward, and came so near King Edward, who was in 
that part of the country, that Edward had to ride hard for 



252 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

it to the coast of Norfolk, and thence to get away in such 
ships as he could find, to Holland. Thereupon, the trium- 
phant King-Maker and his false son-in-law, the Duke of Clar- 
ence, went to London, took the old King out of the Tower, 
and walked him in a great procession to Saint Paul's Cathe- 
dral with the crown upon his head. This did not improve 
the temper of the Duke of Clarence, who saw himself farther 
off from being King than ever; but he kept his secret, 
and said nothing. The Nevil family were restored to all 
their honors and glories, and the Woodvilles and the rest 
were disgraced. The King-Maker, less sanguinary than the 
King, shed no blood except that of the Earl of Worcester, 
who had been so cruel to the people as to have gained the 
title of the Butcher. Him they caught hidden in a tree, and 
him they tried and executed. No other death stained the 
King-Maker's triumph. 

To dispute this triumph, back came King Edward again, 
next year, landing at Ravenspur, coming on to York, caus- 
ing all his men to cry, " Long live King Henry ! " and swear- 
ing on the altar, without a blush, that he came to lay no 
claim to the crown. Now was the time for the Duke of 
Clarence, who ordered his men to assume the White Rose, 
and declare for his brother. The Marquis of Montague, 
though the Earl of Warwick's brother, also declining to 
fight against King Edward, he went on successfully to Lon- 
don, where the Archbishop of York let him into the City, 
and where the people made great demonstrations in his favor. 
For this they had four reasons. Firstly, there were great 
numbers of the King's adherents hiding in the City and 
ready to break out ; secondly , the King owed them a great 
deal of money, which the}^ could never hope to get if he were 
unsuccessful ; thirdly, there was a young prince to inherit 
the crown ; and fourthly, the King was gay and handsome, 
and more popular than a better man might have been with the 
City ladies. After a stay of only two days with these wor- 
thy supporters, the King marched out to Barnet Common to 



EDWARD THE FOUETH. 253 

give the Earl of Warwick battle. And now it was to be 
seen, for the last time, whether the King or the King-Maker 
was to cany the clay. 

While the battle was jet pending, the faint-hearted Duke 
of Clarence began to repent, and sent over secret messages 
to his father-in-law, offering his services in mediation with 
the King. But, the Earl of Warwick disdainfully rejected 
them, and replied that Clarence was false and perjured, and 
that he would settle the quarrel by the sword. The battle 
began at four o'clock in the morning and lasted until ten, and 
during the greater part of the time it was fought in a thick 
mist — absurdly supposed to be raised by a magician. The 
loss of life was very great, for the hatred was strong on both 
sides. The King-Maker was defeated, and the King tri- 
umphed. Both the Earl of Warwick and his brother were 
slain, and their bodies lay in St. Paul's, for some clays, as a 
spectacle to the people. 

Margaret's spirit was not broken even by this great blow. 
Within five clays she was in arms again, and raised her stand- 
ard in Bath, whence she set off with her army, to try and 
join Lord Pembroke, who had a force in Wales. But, the 
King, coming up with her outside the town of Tewkesbuiy, 
and ordering his brother, the Duke of Gloucester, who was 
a brave soldier, to attack her men, she sustained an entire 
defeat, and was taken prisoner, together with her son, now 
only eighteen years of age. The conduct of the King to this 
poor youth was worthy of his cruel character. He ordered 
him to be led into his tent. " And what," said he, " brought 
you to England ? " "I came to England," replied the prisoner, 
with a spirit which a man of spirit might have admired in 
a captive, " to recover my father's kingdom, which descended 
to him as his right, and from him descends to me, as mine." 
The King, drawing off his iron gauntlet, struck him with it 
in the face ; and the Duke of Clarence and some other lords, 
who were there, drew their noble swords, and killed him. 

His mother survived him, a prisoner, for five 3'ears ; after 



254 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

her ransom by the King of France, she survived for six years 
more. Within three weeks of this murder, Henry died one of 
those convenient sudden deaths which were so common in the 
Tower ; in plainer words, he was murdered by the King's order. 

Having no particular excitement on his hands after this 
great defeat of the Lancaster party, and being perhaps desir- 
ous to get rid of some of his fat (for he was now getting too 
corpulent to be handsome) , the King thought of making war 
on France. As he wanted more money for this purpose than 
the Parliament could give him, though they were usually 
ready enough for war, he invented a new way of raising it, 
by sending for the principal citizens of London, and telling 
them, with a grave face, that he was very much in want of 
cash, and would take it very kind in them if they would lend 
him some. It being impossible for them safely to refuse, 
they complied, and the moneys thus forced from them were 
called — no doubt to the great amusement of the King and 
the Court — as if they were free gifts, ' ' Benevolences." What 
with grants from Parliament, and what with Benevolences, 
the King raised an army and passed over to Calais. As no- 
body wanted war, however, the French King made proposals 
of peace, which were accepted, and a truce was concluded 
for seven long years. The proceedings between the Kings 
of France and England on this occasion, were very friendly, 
very splendid, and very distrustful. They finished with a 
meeting between the two Kings, on a temporary bridge over 
the river Somme, where they embraced through two holes in 
a strong wooden grating like a lion's cage, and made several 
bows and fine speeches to one another. 

It was time, 'how, that the Duke of Clarence should be 
punished for his treacheries ; and Fate had his punishment 
in store. He was, probably, not trusted by the King — for 
who could trust him who knew him ! — and he had certainly a 
powerful opponent in his brother Richard, Duke of Glouces- 
ter, who, being avaricious and ambitious, wanted to marry 
that widowed daughter of the Earl of Warwick's who had 



EDWARD THE FOURTH. 255 

been espoused to the deceased young Prince at Calais. Clar- 
ence, who wanted all the family wealth for himself, secreted 
this lady, whom Richard found disguised as a servant in the 
City of London, and whom he married ; arbitrators appointed 
by the King, then divided the property between the brothers. 
This led to ill-will and mistrust between them. Clarence's 
wife dying, and he wishing to make another marriage, which 
was obnoxious to the King, his ruin was hurried by that 
means, too. At first, the Court struck at his retainers and 
dependents, and accused some of them of magic and witch- 
craft, and similar nonsense. Successful against this small 
game, it then mounted to the Duke himself, who was im- 
peached by his brother the King, in person, on a variety of 
such charges. He was found guilty, and sentenced to be 
publicly executed. He never was publicly executed, but he 
met his death somehow, in the Tower, and, no doubt, through 
some agency of the King or his brother Gloucester, or both. 
It was supposed at the time that he was told to choose the 
manner of his death, and that he chose to be drowned in a 
butt of Malmsey wine. I hope the story may be true, for 
it would have been a becoming death for such a miserable 
creature. 

The King survived him some five years. He died in the 
forty-second year of his life, and the twentj'-third of his reign. 
He had a very good capacity and some good points, but he 
was selfish, careless, sensual, and cruel. He was a favorite 
with the people for his showy manners ; and the people were 
a good example to him in the constancy of their attachment. 
He was penitent on his death-bed for his "benevolences," 
and other extortions, and ordered restitution to be made to 
the people who had suffered from them. He also called about 
his bed the enriched members of the Woodville family, and 
the proud lords whose honors were of older date, and en- 
deavored to reconcile them, for the sake of the peaceful 
succession of his son and the tranquillitj- of England. 



256 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FIFTH. 

The late King's eldest son, the Prince of Wales, called 
Edward after him, was only thirteen years of age at his 
father's death. He was at Ludlow Castle with his uncle, the 
Earl of Rivers. The prince's brother, the Duke of York, 
only eleven years of age, was in London with his mother. 
The boldest, most crafty, and most dreaded nobleman in Eng- 
land at that time was their uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, 
and eveiybody wondered how the two poor boys would fare 
with such an uncle for a friend or a foe. 

The Queen, their mother, being exceedingly uneasy about 
this, was anxious that instructions should be sent to Lord 
Rivers to raise an army to escort the young King safely to 
London. But, Lord Hastings, who was of the court party 
opposed to the Woodvilles, and who disliked the thought of 
giving them that power, argued against the proposal, and 
obliged the Queen to be satisfied with an escort of two thou- 
sand horse. The Duke of Gloucester did nothing, at first, to 
justify suspicion. He came from Scotland (where he was 
commanding an army) to York, and was there the first to 
swear allegiance to his nephew. He then wrote a condoling 
letter to the Queen-mother, and set off to be present at the 
coronation in London. 

Now, the young King, journejdng towards London too, 
with Lord Rivers and Lord Gray, came to Stony Stratford, 
as his uncle came to Northampton, about ten miles distant ; 
and when those two lords heard that the Duke of Gloucester 
was so near, they proposed to the young King that they 



EDWARD THE FIFTH. 257 

should go back and greet him in his name. The boy being 
Very willing that they should do so, they rode off and were 
received with great friendliness, and asked b}' the Duke of 
Gloucester to stay and dine with him. In the evening, while 
thej* were merry together, up came the Duke of Buckingham 
with three hundred horsemen ; and next morning the two 
lords and the two dukes, and the three hundred horsemen, 
rode awa} 7 together to rejoin the King. Just as they were 
entering Ston} r Stratford, the Duke of Gloucester, checking 
his horse, turned suddenly on the two lords, charged them 
with alienating from him the affections of his sweet nephew, 
and caused them to be arrested by the three hundred horse- 
men and taken back. Then, he and the Duke of Buckingham 
wyent straight to the King (whom the} T had now in their 
power) , to whom they made a show of kneeling down, and 
offering great love and submission ; and then they ordered 
his attendants to disperse, and took him, alone with them, to 
Northampton. 

A few days afterwards they conducted him to London, and 
lodged him in the Bishop's Palace. But, he did not remain 
there long ; for, the Duke of Buckingham with a tender face 
made a speech expressing how anxious he was for the Royal 
boy's safet} 7 , and how much safer he would be in the Tower 
until his coronation, than he could be anywhere else. So, to 
the Tower he was taken, very carefully, and the Duke of 
Gloucester was named Protector of the State. 

Although Gloucester had proceeded thus far with a very 
smooth countenance — and although he was a clever man, 
fair of speech, and not ill-looking, inspite of one of his 
shoulders being something higher than the other — and al- 
though he had come into the City riding bare-headed at the 
King's side, and looking very fond of him — he had made 
the King's mother more uneasy yet ; and when the Royal 
boj' was taken to the Tower, she became so alarmed that she 
took sanctuary in Westminster with her five daughters. 

Nor did she do this without reason, for, the Duke of Glou- 

17 



258 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

cester, finding that the lords who were opposed to the Wood- 
ville family were faithful to the } T oung King nevertheless, 
quickly resolved to strike a blow for himself. Accordingly, 
while those lords met in council at the Tower, he and those 
who were in his interest met in separate council at his own 
residence, Crosby Palace, in Bishopsgate Street. Being at 
last quite prepared, he one day appeared unexpectedly at the 
council in the Tower, and appeared to be very jocular and 
merry. He was particularly gay with the Bishop of Ely: 
praising the strawberries that grew in his garden on Holborn 
Hill, and asking him to have some gathered that he might 
eat them at dinner. The Bishop, quite proud of the honor, 
sent one of his men to fetch some ; and the Duke, still very 
jocular and gay, went out ; and the council all said what a 
very agreeable duke he was ! In a little time, however, he 
came back quite altered — not at all jocular — frowning and 
fierce — and suddenly said, — 

" What do those persons deserve who have compassed my 
destruction ; I being the King's lawful, as well as natural, 
protector ? " 

To this strange question, Lord Hastings replied, that they 
deserved death, whosoever they were. 

"Then," said the Duke, "I tell you that they are that 
sorceress my brother's wife;" meaning the Queen: "and 
that other sorceress, Jane Shore. Who, by witchcraft, have 
withered my body, and caused my arm to shrink as I now 
show 3^ou." 

He then pulled up his sleeve and showed them his arm, 
which was shrunken, it is true, but which had been so, as 
they all very well knew, from the hour of his birth. 

Jane Shore, being then the lover of Lord Hastings, as she 
had formerly been of the late King, that lord knew that 
he himself was attacked. So, he said, in some confusion, 
" Certainly, my Lord, if they have done this, they be worthy 
of punishment." 

" If ? " said the Duke of Gloucester ; " do you talk to me 



EDWAKD THE FIFTH. 259 

of ifs? I tell you that they have so done, and I will make it 
good upon thy body, thou traitor ! " 

With that he struck the table a great blow with his fist. 
This was a signal to some of his people outside to cry " Trea- 
son ! " The} T immediately did so, and there was a rush into 
the chamber of so man}^ armed men that it was filled in a 
moment. 

" First," said the Duke of Gloucester to Lord Hastings, 
" I arrest thee, traitor! And let him," he added to the 
armed men who took him, "have a priest at once, for by 
St. Paul I will not dine until I have seen his head off! " 

Lord Hastings was hurried to the green by the Tower 
chapel, and there beheaded on a log of wood that happened 
to, be lying on the ground. Then, the Duke dined with a 
good appetite, and after dinner summoning the principal 
citizens to attend him, told them that Lord Hastings and 
the rest had designed to murder both himself and the Duke 
of Buckingham, who stood by his side, if he had not provi- 
dentially discovered their design. He requested them to be 
so obliging as to inform their fellow-citizens of the truth of 
what he said, and issued a proclamation (prepared and neatly 
copied out beforehand) to the same effect. 

On the same da} T that the Duke did these things in the 
Tower, Sir Richard Ratcliffe, the boldest and most undaunted 
of his men, went down to Pontefract ; arrested Lord Rivers, 
Lord Gray, and two other gentlemen ; and publicly executed 
them on the scaffold, without any trial, for having intended 
the Duke's death. Three days afterwards the Duke, not to 
lose time, went down the river to Westminster in his barge, 
attended by divers bishops, lords, and soldiers, and demanded 
that the Queen should deliver her second son, the Duke of 
York, into his safe keeping. The Queen, being obliged to 
comply, resigned the child after she had wept over him ; and 
Richard of Gloucester placed him with his brother in the 
Tower. Then, he seized Jane Shore, and, because she had 
been the lover of the late King, confiscated her property, and 



260 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

got her sentenced to do public penance in the streets by 
walking in a scanty dress, with bare feet, and carrying a 
lighted candle, to St. Paul's Cathedral, through the most 
crowded part of the City. 

Having now all things ready for his own advancement, he 
caused a friar to preach a sermon at the cross which stood in 
front of St. Paul's Cathedral, in which he dwelt upon the 
profligate manners of the late King, and upon the late shame 
of Jane Shore, and hinted that the princes were not his chil- 
dren. k ' Whereas, good people," said the friar, whose name 
was Shaw, "my Lord the Protector, the noble Duke of 
Gloucester, that sweet prince, the pattern of all the noblest 
virtues, is the perfect image and express likeness of his 
father." There had been a little plot between the Duke and 
the friar, that the Duke should appear in the crowd at this 
moment, when it was expected that the people would cry 
11 Long live King Richard!" But, either through the friar 
saying the words too soon, or through the Duke's coming too 
late, the Duke and the words did not come together, and the 
people only laughed, and the friar sneaked off ashamed. 

The Duke of Buckingham was a better hand at such busi- 
ness than the friar, so he went to the Guildhall the next day, 
and addressed the citizens in the Lord Protector's behalf. 
A few dirty men, who had been hired and stationed there for 
the purpose, crying when he had done, " God save King 
Richard ! " he made them a great bow, and thanked them 
with all his heart. Next day, to make an end of it, he went 
with the mayor and some lords and citizens to Ba3 T ard Castle, 
by the river, where Richard then was, and read an address, 
humbly entreating him to accept the Crown of England. 
Richard, who looked down upon them out of a window and 
pretended to be in great uneasiness and alarm, assured them 
there was nothing he desired less, and that his deep affection 
for his nephews forbade him to think of it. To this the 
Duke of Buckingham replied, with pretended warmth, that 
the free people of England would never submit to his nephew's 



EDWAED THE FIFTH. 261 

rule, and that if Richard, who was the lawful heir, refused 
the Crown, why then they must find some one else to wear it. 
The Duke of Gloucester returned, that since he used that 
strong language, it became his painful duty to think no more 
of himself, and to accept the Crown. 

Upon that, the people cheered and dispersed ; and the 
Duke of Gloucester and the Duke of Buckingham passed a 
pleasant evening, talking over the play they had just acted 
with so much success, and every word of which they had pre- 
pared together. 



262 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE THIRD. 

King Richard the Third was up betimes in the morning, 
and went to Westminster Hall. In the Hall was a marble 
seat, upon which he sat himself clown between two great 
noblemen, and told the people that he began the new reign 
in that place, because the first duty of a sovereign was to 
administer the laws equally to all. and to maintain justice. 
He then mounted his horse and rode back to the City, where 
he was received by the clergy and the crowd as if he really 
had a right to the throne, and really were a just man. The 
clergy and the crowd must have been rather ashamed of 
themselves in secret, I think, for being such poor-spirited 
knaves. 

The new King and his Queen were soon crowned with a 
great deal of show and noise, which the people liked very 
much ; and then the King set forth on a royal progress 
through his dominions. He was crowned a second time at 
York, in order that the people might have show and noise 
enough ; and wherever he went was received with shouts of 
rejoicing — from a good man} 7 people of strong lungs, who 
were paid to strain their throats in crying, " Grod save King 
Richard ! " The plan was so successful that I am told it has 
been imitated since, by other usurpers, in other progresses 
through other dominions. 

While he was on this journey, King Richard stayed a week 
at Warwick. And from Warwick he sent instructions home 
for one of the wickedest murders that ever was done — the 
murder of the two young princes, his nephews, who were 
shut up in the Tower of London. 



EICHAED THE THIRD. 263 

Sir Robert Brackenbury was at that time Governor of the 
Tower. To him, b} T the hands of a messenger named John 
Green, did King Richard send a letter, ordering him by 
some means to put the two young princes to death. But Sir 
Robert — I hope because he had children of his own, and 
loved them — sent John Green back again, riding and spur- 
ring along the dusty roads, with the answer that he could not 
do so horrible a piece of work. The King, having frowningly 
considered a little, called to him Sir James Tyrrel, his mas- 
ter of the horse, and to him gave authority to take command 
of the Tower, whenever he would, for twenty-four hours, and 
to keep all the keys of the Tower during that space of time. 
Tyrrel, well knowing what was wanted, looked about him for 
two* hardened ruffians, and chose John Dighton, one of his 
own grooms, and Miles Forest, who was a murderer by 
trade. Having secured these two assistants, he went, upon 
a day in August, to the Tower, showed his authority from 
the King, took the command for four-and-twent}' hours, and 
obtained possession of the ke} r s. And when the black night 
came, he went creeping, creeping, like a guilt}' villain as he 
was, up the dark stone winding stairs, and along the dark 
stone passages, until he came to the door of the room where 
the two young princes, having said their prayers, lay fast 
asleep, clasped in each other's arms. And while he watched 
and listened at the door, he sent in those evil demons, John 
Dighton and Miles Forest, who smothered the two princes 
with the bed and pillows, and carried their bodies down the 
stairs, and buried them under a great heap of stones at 
the staircase foot. And when the day came, he gave up 
the command of the Tower, and restored the keys, and hur- 
ried away without once looking behind him ; and Sir Robert 
Brackenburj'' went with fear and sadness to the princes' room, 
and found the princes gone for ever. 

You know, through all this history, how true it is that 
traitors are never true, and you will not be surprised to learn 
that the Duke of Buckingham soon turned against King Rich- 



264 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

ard, and joined a great conspiracy that was formed to de- 
throne him, and to place the crown upon its rightful owner's 
head. Richard had meant to keep the murder secret ; but 
when he heard through his spies that this conspiracy existed, 
and that many lords and gentlemen drank in secret to the 
healths of the two young princes in the Tower, he made it 
known that they were dead. The conspirators, though 
thwarted for a moment, soon resolved to set up for the crown 
against the murderous Richard, Henry Earl of Richmond, 
grandson of Catherine : that widow of Henry the Fifth who 
married Owen Tudor. And as Henry was of the house of 
Lancaster, they proposed that he should marry the Princess 
Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of the late King, now the heir- 
ess of the house of York, and thus b}^ uniting the rival families 
put an end to the fatal wars of the Red and White Roses. 
All being settled, a time was appointed for Henry to come 
over from Brittany, and for a great rising against Richard to 
take place in several parts of England at the same hour. On 
a certain day, therefore, in October, the revolt took place ; 
but unsuccessfully. Richard was prepared, Henry was driven 
back at sea b}' a storm, his followers in England were dis- 
persed, and the Duke of Buckingham was taken, and at once 
beheaded in the market-place at Salisbury. 

The time of his success was a good time, Richard thought, 
for summoning a Parliament and getting some money. So, 
a Parliament was called, and it flattered and fawned upon 
him as much as he could possibly desire, and declared him to 
be the rightful King of England, and his only son Edward, 
then eleven years of age, the next heir to the throne. 

Richard knew full well that, let the Parliament say what it 
would, the Princess Elizabeth was remembered by people as 
the heiress of the house of York ; and having accurate infor- 
mation besides, of its being designed by the conspirators to 
marry her to Henry of Richmond, he felt that it would much 
strengthen him and weaken them, to be beforehand with them, 
and marry her to his son. With this view he went to the 



RICHARD THE THIRD. 265 

Sanctuary at Westminster, where the late King's widow and 
her daughter still were, and besought them to come to Court : 
where (he swore by anything and everything) they should be 
safety and honorably entertained. They came, accordingly, 
but had scarcely been at Court a month when his son died 
suddenly — or was poisoned — and his plan was crushed to 
pieces. 

In this extremity, King Richard, alwaj^s active, thought, 
"I must make another plan." And he made the plan of 
marrying the Princess Elizabeth himself, although she was 
his niece. There was one difficulty in the wa}^ : his wife, the 
Queen Anne, was alive. But, he knew (remembering his 
nephews) how to remove that obstacle, and he made love to 
the 'Princess Elizabeth, telling her he felt perfectly confident 
that the Queen would die in February. The Princess was 
not a very scrupulous young lady, for, instead of rejecting 
the murderer of her brothers with scorn and hatred, she 
openly declared she loved him dearly ; and, when February 
came and the Queen did not die, she expressed her impatient 
opinion that she was too long about it.- However, King Rich- 
ard was not so far out in his prediction, but that she died in 
March — he took good care of that — and then this precious 
pair hoped to be married. But they were disappointed, for 
the idea of such a marriage was so unpopular in the country, 
that the King's chief counsellors, Ratcliffe and Catesby, 
would by no means undertake to propose it, and the King 
was even obliged to declare in public that he had never thought 
of such a thing. 

He was, by this time, dreaded and hated by all classes of 
his subjects. His nobles deserted every day to Henry's side ; 
he dared not call another Parliament, lest his crimes should 
be denounced there ; and for want of money, he was obliged 
to get Benevolences from the citizens, which exasperated 
them all against him. It was said too, that, being stricken 
by his conscience, he dreamed frightful dreams, and started 
up in the night-time, wild with terror and remorse. Active 



266 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

to the last, through all this, he issued vigorous proclamations 
against Henry of Richmond and all his followers, when he 
heard that they were coming against him with a Fleet from 
France ; and took the field as fierce and savage as a wild 
boar — the animal represented on his shield. 

Henry of Richmond landed with six thousand men at Mil- 
ford Haven, and came on against King Richard, then en- 
camped at Leicester with an army twice as great, through 
North Wales. On Bosworth Field the two armies met ; and 
Richard, looking along Henry's ranks, and seeing them 
crowded with the English nobles who had abandoned him, 
turned pale when he beheld the powerful Lord Stanle}* and 
his son (whom he had tried hard to retain) among them. 
But, he was as brave as he was wicked, and plunged into the 
thickest of the fight. He was riding hither and thither, lajing 
about him in all directions, when he observed the Earl of 
Northumberland — one of his few great allies — to stand in- 
active, and the main body of his troops to hesitate. At the 
same moment, his desperate glance caught Heniy of Richmond 
among a little group of his knights. Riding hard at him, and 
crying "Treason!" he killed his standard-bearer, fiercely 
unhorsed another gentleman, and aimed a powerful stroke at 
Henry himself, to cut him down. But, Sir William Stanley 
parried it as it fell, and before Richard could raise his arm 
again, he was borne down in a press of numbers, unhorsed, 
and killed. Lord Stanle} r picked up the crown, all bruised 
and trampled, and stained with blood, and put it upon Rich- 
mond's head, amid loud and rejoicing cries of "Long live 
King Henry ! " 

That night, a horse was led up to the church of the Grey 
Friars at Leicester ; across whose back was tied, like some 
worthless sack, a naked bod}' brought there for burial. It 
was the body of the last of the Plantagenet line, King Rich- 
ard the Third, usurper and murderer, slain at the battle of 
Bosworth Field in the thirty-second year of his age, after a 
reign of two } T ears. 



HENRY THE SEVENTH. 267 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SEVENTH. 

King Henry the Seventh did not turn out to be as fine 
a fellow as the nobility and people hoped, in the first joy of 
their deliverance from Richard the Third. He was very cold, 
crafty, and calculating, and would do almost anything for 
money. He possessed considerable ability, but his chief 
merit appears to have been that he was not cruel when there 
was nothing to be got 03^ it. 

The new King had promised the nobles who had espoused 
his cause that he would marry the Princess Elizabeth. The 
first thing he did, was, to direct her to be removed from the 
castle of Sheriff Hutton in Yorkshire, where Richard had 
placed her, and restored to the care of her mother in London. 
The 3'oung Earl of Warwick, Edward Plantagenet, son and 
heir of the late Duke of Clarence, had been kept a prisoner 
in the same old Yorkshire Castle with her. This bo3 r , who 
was now fifteen, the new King placed in the Tower for safety. 
Then he came to London in great state, and gratified the 
people with a fine procession ; on which kind of show he often 
ver3 r much relied for keeping them in good humor. The 
sports and feasts which took place were followed 03* a terrible 
fever, called the Sweating Sickness ; of which great numbers 
of people died. Lord Ma3 T ors and Aldermen are thought to 
have suffered most from it ; whether, because they were in 
the habit of overeating themselves, or because the3' were very 
jealous of preserving filth and nuisances in the City (as they 
have been since) , I don't know. 

The King's coronation was postponed on account of the 



268 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

general ill-health, and he afterwards deferred his marriage, 
as if he were not very anxious that it should take place : and, 
even after that, deferred the Queen's coronation so long that 
he gave offence to the York party. However, he set these 
things right in the end, by hanging some men and seizing on 
the rich possessions of others ; by granting more popular 
pardons to the followers of the late King than could, at first, 
be got from him ; and, by employing about his Court, some 
not very scrupulous persons who had been employed in the 
previous reign. 

As this reign was principally remarkable for two very 
curious impostures which have become famous in history, we 
will make those two stories its principal feature. 

There was a priest at Oxford of the name of Simons, who 
had for a pupil a handsome boy named Lambert Simnel, the 
son of a baker. Partly to gratify his own ambitious ends, 
and partly to carry out the designs of a secret party formed 
against the King, this priest declared that his pupil, the boy, 
was no other than the young Earl of Warwick ; who (as every- 
body might have known) was safely locked up in the Tower 
of London. The priest and the bo}^ went over to Ireland ; 
and, at Dublin, enlisted in their cause all ranks of the people : 
who seem to have been generous enough, but exceedingly 
irrational. The Earl of Kildare, the governor of Ireland, 
declared that he believed the boy to be what the priest repre- 
sented ; and the boy, who had been well tutored by the priest, 
told them such things of his childhood, and gave them so 
many descriptions of the Royal Family, that they were per- 
petually shouting and hurrahing, and drinking his health, and 
making all kinds of noisy and thirsty demonstrations, to ex- 
press their belief in him. Nor was this feeling confined to 
Ireland alone, for the Earl of Lincoln — whom the late usurper 
had named as his successor — went over to the young Pre- 
tender ; and, after holding a secret correspondence with the 
Dowager Duchess of Burgundy — the sister of Edward the 
Fourth, who detested the present King and all his race — 



HENRY THE SEVENTH. 269 

sailed to Dublin with two thousand German soldiers of her 
providing. In this promising state of the boy's fortunes, he 
was crowned there, with a crown taken off the head of a statue 
of the Virgin Mary ; and was then, according to the Irish 
custom of those days, carried home on the shoulders of a big 
chieftain possessing a great deal more strength than sense. 
Father Simons, you may be sure, was mighty busy at the 
coronation. 

Ten days afterwards, the Germans, and the Irish, and the 
priest and the boy, and the Earl of Lincoln, all landed 
in Lancashire to invade England. The King, who had good 
intelligence of their movements, set up his standard at Not- 
tingham, where vast numbers resorted to him every day ; 
whjle the Earl of Lincoln could gain but very few. With this 
small force he tried to make for the town of Newark ; but the 
King's army getting between him and that place, he had no 
choice but to risk a battle at Stoke. It soon ended in the 
complete destruction of the Pretender's forces ; one half of 
whom were killed : among them the Earl himself. The priest 
and the baker's boy were taken prisoners. The priest, after 
confessing the trick, was shut up in prison, where he after- 
wards died — suddenly perhaps. The boy was taken into 
the King's kitchen and made a turnspit. He was afterwards 
raised to the station of one of the King's falconers ; and so 
ended this strange imposition. 

There seems reason to suspect that the Dowager Queen — 
always a restless and busy woman — had had some share in 
tutoring the baker's son. The King was very angry with her, 
whether or no. He seized upon her property, and shut her 
up in a convent at Bermondse}''. 

One might suppose that the end of this story would have 
put the Irish people on their guard ; but they were quite 
read}" to receive a second impostor, as they had received the 
first and that same troublesome Duchess of Burgundy soon 
gave them the opportunit} r . All of a sudden there appeared 
at Cork, in a vessel arriving from Portugal, a young man of 



270 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

excellent abilities, of very handsome appearance and most 
winning manners, who declared himself to be Richard, Duke 
of York, the second son of King Edward the Fourth. " O," 
said some, even of those ready Irish believers, "but surely 
that young Prince was murdered by his uncle in the Tower ! " 
— "It is supposed so," said the engaging young man ; " and 
my brother was killed in that gloomy prison : but I es- 
caped — it don't matter how, at present — and have been 
wandering about the world for seven long years." This ex- 
planation being quite satisfactory to numbers of the Irish 
people, they began again to shout and to hurrah, and to drink 
his health, and to make the noisy and thirsty demonstrations 
all over again. And the big chieftain in Dublin began to 
look out for another coronation, and another young King to 
be carried home on his back. 

Now, King Henry being then on bad terms with France, 
the French King, Charles the Eighth, saw that, by pretending 
to believe in the handsome young man, he could trouble his 
enemy sorely. So, he invited him over to the French Court, 
and appointed him a bod} T -guard, and treated him in all 
respects as if he really were the Duke of York. Peace, 
however, being soon concluded between the two Kings, the 
pretended Duke was turned adrift, and wandered for pro- 
tection to the Duchess of Burgundy. She, after feigning 
to inquire into the reality of his claims, declared him to be 
the very picture of her dear departed brother ; gave him a 
body-guard at her Court, of thirty halberdiers ; and called 
him by the sounding name of the White Rose of England. 

The leading members of the White Rose party in England 
sent over an agent, named Sir Robert Clifford, to ascertain 
whether the White Rose's claims were good ; the King also 
sent over his agents to inquire into the Rose's history. The 
White Roses declared the young man to be really the Duke 
of York ; the King declared him to be Perkin Warbeck, the 
son of a merchant of the city of Tournay, who had acquired 
his knowledge of England, its language and manners, from 



HENEY THE SEVENTH. 271 

the English merchants who traded in Flanders ; it was also 
stated by the Royal agents that he had been in the service of 
Lady Brompton, the wife of an exiled English nobleman, and 
that the Duchess of Burgundy had caused him to be trained 
and taught, expressly for this deception. The King then 
required the Archduke Philip — who was the sovereign of 
Burgundy — to banish this new Pretender, or to deliver him 
up ; but, as the Archduke replied that he could not control 
the Duchess in her own land, the King, in revenge, took the 
market of English cloth away from Antwerp, and prevented 
all commercial intercourse between the two countries. 

He also, by arts and bribes, prevailed on Sir Robert Clif- 
ford to betray his employers ; and he denouncing several 
fampus English noblemen as being secretly the friends of 
Perkin Warbeck, the King had three of the foremost exe- 
cuted at once. Whether he pardoned the remainder because 
they were poor, I do not know ; but it is only too probable 
that he refused to pardon one famous nobleman against 
whom the same Clifford soon afterwards informed separately, 
because he was rich. This was no other than Sir William 
Stanley, who had saved the King's life at the battle of Bos- 
worth Field. It is very doubtful whether his treason amounted 
to much more than his having said, that if he were sure the 
young man was the Duke of York, he would not take arms- 
against him. Whatever he had done he admitted, like an 
honorable spirit ; and he lost his head for it, and the covetous 
King gained all his wealth. 

Perkin Warbeck kept quiet for three j^ears, but, as the 
Flemings began to complain heavily of the loss of their trade 
by the stoppage of the Antwerp market on his account, and 
that it was not unlikely that they might even go so far as to 
take his life, or give him up, he found it necessary to do 
something. Accordingly he made a desperate sail} 7 , and 
landed, with only a few hundred men, on the coast of Deal. 
But he was soon glad to get back to the place from whence 
he came ; for the country people rose against his followers, 



yS72 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

killed a great many, and took a hundred and fifty prisoners : 
who were all driven to London, tied together with ropes, like 
a team of cattle. Every one of them was hanged on some 
part or other of the sea-shore ; in order, that if an} r more 
men should come over with Perkin Warbeck, they might see 
the bodies as a warning before they landed. 

Then the wary King, by making a treaty of commerce with 
the Flemings, drove Perkin Warbeck out of that country ; 
and, by completely gaining over the Irish to his side, deprived 
him of that asylum too. He wandered awa} r to Scotland, 
and told his story at that Court. King James the Fourth of 
Scotland, who was no friend to King Henry, and had no 
reason to be (for King Henry had bribed his Scotch lords to 
betray him more than once ; but had never succeeded in his 
plots) gave him a great reception, called him his cousin, and 
gave him in marriage the Lady Catherine Gordon, a beauti- 
ful and charming creature related to the royal house of Stuart. 

Alarmed by this successful reappearance of the Pretender, 
the King still undermined, and bought, and bribed, and kept 
his doings and Perkin Warbeck' s story in the dark, when he 
might, one would imagine, have rendered the matter clear to 
all England. But, for all this bribing of the Scotch lords at 
the Scotch King's Court, he could not procure the Pretender 
to be delivered up to him. James, though not very particu- 
lar in many respects, would not betray him ; and the ever- 
busy Duchess of Burgundy so provided him with arms, and 
good soldiers, and with mone3 T besides, that he had soon a little 
army of fifteen hundred men of various nations. With these, 
and aided by the Scottish King in person, he crossed the bor- 
der into England, and made a proclamation to the people, in 
which he called the King ' ' Henry Tudor ; " offered large 
rewards to an}' who should take or distress him ; and an- 
nounced himself as King Richard the Fourth come to receive 
the homage of his faithful subjects. His faithful subjects, 
however, cared nothing for him, and hated his faithful troops : 
who, being of different nations, quarrelled also among them- 



HENRY THE SEVENTH. 273 

selves. Worse than this, if worse were possible, the} 7 - began 
to plunder the country ; upon which the White Rose said, 
that he would rather lose his rights than gain them through 
the miseries of the English people. The Scottish King made 
a jest of his scruples ; but they and their whole force went 
back again without fighting a battle. 

The worst consequence of this attempt was that a rising 
took place among the people of Cornwall, who considered 
themselves too heavily taxed to meet the charges of the ex- 
pected war. Stimulated by Flammock, a lawyer, and Jos- 
eph, a blacksmith, and joined bj r Lord Audley and some 
other country gentlemen, the}' marched on all the way to 
Deptford Bridge, where the} 7 fought a battle with the King's 
arm}> They were defeated — though the Cornish men fought 
with great bravery — and the lord was beheaded, and the 
hrwyer and the blacksmith were hanged, drawn, and quar- 
tered. The rest were pardoned. The King, who believed 
every man to be as avaricious as himself, and thought that 
mone} 7 could settle airvthing, allowed them to make bargains 
for their libeiiy with the soldiers who had taken them. 

Perkin Warbeck, doomed to wander up and down, and 
never to find rest anywhere — a sad fate : almost a suffi- 
cient punishment for an impostor, which he seems in time 
to have half believed himself — lost his Scottish refuge 
through a truce being made between the two Kings ; and 
found himself, once more, without a country before him in 
which he could lay his head. But James (always honorable 
and true to him, alike when he melted down his plate, and 
even the great gold chain he had been used to wear, to pay 
soldiers in his cause ; and now, when that cause was lost 
and hopeless) did not conclude the treat} T , until he had safely 
departed out of the Scottish dominions. He, and his beauti- 
ful wife, who was faithful to him under all reverses, and left 
her state and home to follow his poor fortunes, were put 
aboard ship with everything necessary for their comfort and 
protection, and sailed for Ireland. 

18 



274 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

But the Irish people had had enough of counterfeit Earls 
of Warwick and Dukes of York, for one while ; and would 
give the White Rose no aid. So, the White Rose — encir- 
cled by thorns indeed — resolved to go with his beautiful 
wife to Cornwall as a forlorn resource, and see what might 
be made of the Cornish men who had risen so valiantly a 
little while before, and had fought so bravely at Deptford 
Bridge. 

To Whitsand Bay, in Cornwall, accordingly, came Perkin 
Warbeck and his wife ; and the lovely lady he shut up for 
safety in the Castle of St. Michael's Mount, and then marched 
into Devonshire at the head of three thousand Cornish men. 
These were increased to six thousand by the time of his 
arrival in Exeter ; but there the people made a stout resist- 
ance and he went on to Taunton, where he came in sight of 
the King's army. The stout Cornish men, although they 
were few in number, and badly armed, were so bold that 
they never thought of retreating ; but bravely looked for- 
ward to a battle on the morrow. Unhappily for them, the 
man who was possessed of so many engaging qualities, and 
who attracted as many people to his side when he had noth- 
ing else with which to tempt them, was not as brave as they. 
In the night, when the two armies lay opposite to each 
other, he mounted a swift horse and fled. When morning 
dawned, the poor confiding Cornish men, discovering that 
they had no leader, surrendered to the King's power. Some 
of then were hanged, and the rest were pardoned and went 
miserably home. 

Before the King pursued Perkin Warbeck to the sanctuary 
of Beaulieu in the New Forest, where it was soon known that 
he had taken refuge, he sent a body of horsemen to Saint 
Michael's Mount to seize his wife. She was soon taken and 
brought as a captive before the King. But she was so beau- 
tiful, and so good, and so devoted to the man in whom she 
believed, that the King regarded her with compassion, treated 
her with great respect, and placed her at Court, near the 




CONFESSION OF PERKIN WAEBECK. 



HENRY THE SEVENTH. 275 

Queen's person. And man} 7 years after Perkin Warbeck was 
no more, and when his strange story had become like a nur- 
sery tale, she was called the White Rose, by the people, in 
remembrance of her beauty. 

The sanctuary at Beaulieu was soon surrounded by the 
King's men ; and the King, pursuing his usual dark art- 
ful ways, sent pretended friends to Perkin Warbeck to 
persuade him to come out and surrender himself. This 
he soon did; the King having taken a good look at the 
man of whom he had heard so much — from behind a screen 
— directed him to be well mounted, and to ride behind him 
at a little distance, guarded, but not bound in any way. 
So they entered London with the King's favorite show — a 
procession ; and some of the people hooted as the Pretender 
rode slowly through the streets to the Tower ; but the 
greater part were quiet, and very curious to see him. From 
the Tower, he was taken to the Palace at Westminster, and 
there lodged like a gentleman, though closely watched. He 
was examined every now and then as to his imposture ; but 
the King was so secret in all that he did, that even then he 
gave it a consequence, which it cannot be supposed to have 
in itself deserved. 

At last Perkin Warbeck ran away, and took refuge in 
another sanctuary near Richmond in Surrey. From this he 
was again persuaded to deliver himself up ; and, being con- 
veyed to London he stood in the stocks for a whole day, out- 
side Westminster Hall, and there read a paper purporting to 
be his full confession, and relating his histoiy as the King's 
agents had originally described it. He was then shut up in 
the Tower agaiij, in the company of the Earl of Warwick, 
who had now been there for fourteen years : ever since his 
removal out of Yorkshire, except when the King had had him 
at Court and had shown him to the people, to prove the im- 
posture of the Baker's boy. It is but too probable, when we 
consider the craft} 7 character of Henry the Seventh, that these 
two were brought together for a cruel purpose. A plot was 



276 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

soon discovered between them and the keepers, to murder 
the Governor, get possession of the keys, and proclaim Per- 
kin Warbeck as King Richard the Fourth. That there was 
some such plot, is likely ; that they were tempted into it, is 
at least as likely ; that the unfortunate Earl of Warwick — 
last male of the Plantagenet line — was too unused to the 
world, and too ignorant and simple to know much about it, 
whatever it was, is perfectly certain ; and that it was the 
King's interest to get rid of him, is no less so. He was be- 
headed on Tower Hill, and Perkin Warbeck was hanged at 
Tyburn. 

Such was the end of the pretended Duke of York, whose 
shadow}' history was made more shadowy — and ever will 
be — by the mysteiy and craft of the King. If he had turned 
his great natural advantages to a more honest account, he 
might have lived a happy and respected life even in those 
days. But he died upon a gallows at Tyburn, leaving the 
Scottish lad} r who had loved him so well, kindly protected at 
the Queen's Court. After some time she forgot her old loves 
and troubles, as many people do with Time's merciful assist- 
ance, and married a Welsh gentleman. Her second husband, 
Sir Matthew Cradoc, more honest and more happ}- than her 
first, lies beside her in a tomb in the old church of Swansea. 

The ill-blood between France and England in this reign, 
arose out of the continued plotting of the Duchess of Bur- 
gundy, and disputes respecting the affairs of Brittany. The 
King feigned to be very patriotic, indignant, and warlike : 
but he alwa} T s contrived so as never to make war in reality, 
and always to make money. His taxation of the people, on 
pretence of war with France, involved, at one time, a very 
dangerous insurrection, headed by Sir John Egremont, and 
a common man called John a Chambre. But it was subdued 
by the ro}^al forces, under the command of the Earl of Sur- 
rey. The knighted John escaped to the Duchess of Burgun- 
dy, who was ever ready to receive airy one who gave the King 
trouble : and the plain John was hanged at York in the midst 



HENRY THE SEVENTH. 277 

of a number of his men, but on a much higher gibbet, as 
being a greater traitor. Hung high or hung low, however, 
hanging is much the same to the person hung. 

Within a year after her marriage, the Queen had given 
birth to a son, who was called Prince Arthur, in remembrance 
of the old British Prince of romance and story ; and who, 
when all these events had happened, being then in his fif- 
teenth year, was married to Catherine, the daughter of the 
Spanish monarch, with great rejoicings and bright prospects ; 
but in a very few months he sickened and died. As soon as 
the King had recovered from his grief, he thought it a pity 
that the fortune of the Spanish Princess, amounting to two 
hundred thousand crowns, should go out of the family ; and 
therefore arranged that the young widow should marry his 
second son Henry, then twelve years of age, when he too 
should be fifteen. There were objections to this marriage on 
the part of the clergy ; but, as the infallible Pope was gained 
over, and, as he must be right, that settled the business for 
the time. The King's eldest daughter was provided for, and 
a long course of disturbance was considered to be set at rest, 
by her being married to the Scottish King. 

And now the Queen died. When the King had got over 
that grief too, his mind once more reverted to his darling 
money for consolation, and he thought of marrying the Dow- 
ager Queen of Naples, who was immensely rich : but, as it 
turned out not to be practicable to gain the money, however 
practicable it might have been to gain the lady, he gave up 
the idea. He was not so fond of her but that he soon pro- 
posed to many the Dowager Duchess of Savoy ; and, soon 
afterwards, the widow of the King of Castile, who was rav- 
ing mad. But he made a money-bargain instead, and mar- 
ried neither. 

The Duchess of Burgundy, among the other discontented 
people to whom she had given refuge, had sheltered Edmund 
de la Pole (younger brother of that Earl of Lincoln who was 
killed at Stoke) , now Earl of Suffolk. The King had pre- 



278 . A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

vailed upon him to return to the marriage of Prince Arthur ; 
but, he soon afterwards went away again ; and then the King, 
suspecting a conspiracy, resorted to his favorite plan of send- 
ing him some treacherous friends, and bivying of those scoun- 
drels the secrets they disclosed or invented. Some arrests 
and executions took place in consequence. In the end, the 
King, on a promise of not taking his life, obtained posses- 
sion of the person of Edmund cle la Pole, and shut him up in 
the Tower. 

This was his last enemy. If he had lived much longer he 
would have made many more among the people, by the 
grinding exaction to which he constantly exposed them, and 
by the tyrannical acts of his two prime favorites in all 
mone3^-raising matters, Edmund Dudley and Richard Emp- 
son. But Death — the enemy who is not to be bought off 
or deceived, and on whom no money, and no treachery, has 
airy effect — presented himself at this juncture, and ended 
the King's reign. He died of the gout, on the twenty-second 
of April, one thousand five hundred and nine, and in the 
fifty-third year of his age, after reigning twenty-four years ; 
he was buried in the beautiful Chapel of Westminster Abbey, 
which he had himself founded, and which still bears his name. 

It was in this reign that the great Christopher Columbus, 
on behalf of Spain, discovered what was then called The New 
World. Great wonder, interest, and hope of wealth being 
awakened. in England thereby, the King and the merchants 
of London and Bristol fitted out an English expedition for 
further discoveries in the New World, and entrusted it to 
Sebastian Cabot, of Bristol, the son of a Venetian pilot 
there. He was very successful in his voyage, and gained 
high reputation, both for himself and England. 



HENRY THE EIGHTH. 279 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE EIGHTH, CALLED BLUFF KING HAL 
AND BURLY KING HARRY. 

Part the First. 

\Ye now come to King Henry the Eighth, whom it has 
been too much the fashion to call "Bluff King Hal," and 
"Burly King Harry," and other fine names; but whom I 
shall take the liberty to call, plainly, one of the most detest- 
able villains that ever drew breath. You will be able to 
judge, long before we come to the end of his life, whether he 
deserves the character. 

He was just eighteen years of age when he came to the 
throne. People said he was handsome then ; but I don't 
believe it. He was a big, burly, noisy, small-eyed, large- 
faced, double-chinned, swinish-looking fellow in later life (as 
we know from the likenesses of him, painted by the famous 
Hans Holbein) , and it is not easy to believe that so bad a 
character can ever have been veiled under a prepossessing 
appearance. 

He was anxious to make himself popular ; and the people, 
who had long disliked the late King, were very willing to 
believe that he deserved to be so. He was extremely fond of 
show and display, and so were the} T . Therefore there was 
great rejoicing when he married the Princess Catherine, and 
when they were both crowned. And the King fought at 
tournaments and always came off victorious — for the court- 
iers took care of that — and there was a general outciy that 



280 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

lie was a wonderful man. Empson, Dudley, and their sup- 
porters were accused of a variety of crimes the} T had never 
committed, instead of the offences of which they really had 
been guilty; and they were pilloried, and set upon horses 
with their faces to the tails, and knocked about and beheaded, 
to the satisfaction of the people, and the enrichment of the 
King. 

The Pope, so indefatigable in getting the world into trouble, 
had mixed himself up in a war on the continent of Europe, 
occasioned by the reigning Princes of little quarrelling states 
in Italy having at various times married into other Royal 
families, and so led to their claiming a share in those petty 
Governments. The King, who discovered that he was very 
fond of the Pope, sent a herald to the King of France, to say 
that he must not make war upon that holy personage, because 
he was the father of all Christians. As the French King did 
not mind this relationship in the least, and also refused to 
admit a claim King Henry made to certain lands in France, 
war was declared between the two countries. Not to perplex 
this story with an account of the tricks and designs of all the 
sovereigns who were engaged in it, it is enough to say that 
England made a blundering alliance with Spain, and got 
stupidly taken in by that country ; which made its own terms 
with France when it could, and left England in the lurch. 
Sir Edward Howard, a bold Admiral, son of the Earl of 
Surrey, distinguished himself by his braveiy against the 
French in this business ; but, unfortunately, he was more 
brave than wise, for, skimming into the French harbor of 
Brest with onty a few row-boats, he attempted (in revenge 
for the defeat and death of Sir Thomas Knyvett, another 
bold English admiral) to take some strong French ships, well 
defended with batteries of cannon. The upshot was. that he 
was left on board of one of them (in consequence of its 
shooting away from his own boat) , with not more than about 
a dozen men, and was thrown into the sea and drowned ; 
though not until he had taken from his breast his gold chain 



HENRY THE EIGHTH. 281 

and gold whistle, which were the signs of his office, and had 
cast them into the sea to prevent their being made a boast of 
by the enemy. After this defeat — which was a great one, 
for Sir Edward Howard was a man of valor and fame — the 
King took it into his head to invade France in person ; 
first executing that dangerous Earl of Suffolk whom his 
father had left in the Tower, and appointing Queen Catherine 
to the charge of his kingdom in his absence. He sailed to 
Calais, where he was joined by Maximilian, Emperor of 
Germany, who pretended to be his soldier, and who took 
pay in his service : with a good deal of nonsense of that 
sort, flattering enough to the vanity of a vain blusterer. 
The King might be successful enough in sham fights ; but 
his idea of real battles, chiefly consisted in pitching silken 
tenta of bright colors that were ignominiously blown down 
by the wind, and in making a vast display of gaud}* flags 
and golden curtains. Fortune, however, favored him better 
than he deserved ; for, after much waste of time in tent 
pitching, flag flying, gold curtaining, and other such masquer- 
ading, he gave the French battle at a place called Guinegate : 
where the}' took such an unaccountable panic, and fled with 
such swiftness, that it was ever afterwards called by the 
English the Battle of Spurs. Instead of following up his 
advantage, the King, finding that he had had enough of real 
fighting, came home again. 

The Scottish King, though nearly related to Henry by 
marriage, had taken part against him in this war. The Earl 
of Surrey, as the English general, advanced to meet him 
when he came out of his own dominions and crossed the river 
Tweed. The two armies came up with one another when the 
Scottish King had also crossed the river Till, and was en- 
camped upon the last of the Cheviot Hills, called the Hill of 
Flodden. Along the plain below it, the English, when the 
hour of battle came, advanced. The Scottish army, which 
had been drawn up in five great bodies, then came steadily 
down in perfect silence. So the}*, in their turn, advanced to 



2S2 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

meet the English army, which came on in one long line ; and 
the} r attacked it with a body of spearmen, under Lord Home. 
At first the}^ had the best of it ; but the English recovered 
themselves so bravely, and fought with such valor, that, when 
the Scottish King had almost made his way up to the Ro3'al 
standard, he was slain, and the whole Scottish power routed. 
Ten thousand Scottish men lay dead that day on Flodden 
Field ; and among them, numbers of the nobilit}' and gentry. 
For a long time afterwards, the Scottish peasantiy used to 
believe that their King had not been really killed in this bat- 
tle, because no Englishman had found an iron belt he wore 
about his body as a penance for having been an unnatural 
and undutiful son. But, whatever became of his belt, the 
English had his sword and dagger, and the ring from his 
finger, and his body too, covered with wounds. There is no 
doubt of it ; for it was seen and recognized by English gen- 
tlemen who had known the Scottish King well. 

When King Henry was making ready to renew the war in 
France, the French King was contemplating peace. His 
queen, dying at this time, he proposed, though he was up- 
wards of fifty years old, to many King Henry's sister, the 
Princess Mary, who, besides being only sixteen, was betrothed 
to the Duke of Suffolk. As the inclinations of young Prin- 
cesses were not much considered in such matters, the marriage 
was concluded, and the poor girl was escorted to France, 
where she was immediately left as the French King's bride, 
with only one of all her English attendants. That one was 
a pretty young girl named Anne Boleyn, niece of the Earl 
of Surrey, who had been made Duke of Norfolk, after the 
victory of Flodden Field. Anne Bole} r n's is a name to be 
remembered, as you will presently find. 

And now the French King, who was very proud of his 
3 r oung wife, was preparing for many years of happiness, and 
she was looking forward, I dare say, to many years of misery, 
when he died within three months, and left her a young widow. 
The new French monarch, Francis the First, seeing how 



HENRY THE EIGHTH. 283 

important it was to his interests that she should take for 
her second husband no one but an Englishman, advised her 
first lover, the Duke of Suffolk, when King Henry sent him 
over to France to fetch her home, to many her. The Princess 
being herself so fond of that Duke, as to tell him that he 
must either do so then, or for ever lose her, they were wedded ; 
and Heniy afterwards forgave them. In making interest 
with the King, the Duke of Suffolk had addressed his most 
powerful favorite and adviser, Thomas Wolsey — a name 
very famous in history for its rise and downfall. 

Wolsey was the son of a respectable butcher at Ipswich, in 
Suffolk, and received so excellent an education that he be- 
came a tutor to the family of the Marquis of Dorset, who 
afterwards got him appointed one of the late King's chaplains. 
On the accession of Hemy the Eighth, he was promoted and 
taken into great favor. He was now Archbishop of York ; 
the Pope had made him a Cardinal besides ; and whoever 
wanted influence in England or favor with the King — 
whether he were a foreign monarch or an English nobleman 
— was obliged to make a friend of the great Cardinal Wol- 
sey. 

He was a gay man, who could dance and jest, and sing 
and drink ; and those were the roads to so much, or rather so 
little, of a heart as King Henry had. He was wonderfully 
fond of pomp and glitter, and so was the King. He knew a 
good deal of the Church learning of that time ; much of 
which consisted in rinding artful excuses and pretences for 
almost any wrong thing, and in arguing that black was white, 
or an}' other color. This kind of learning pleased the King 
too. For many such reasons, the Cardinal was high in es- 
timation with the King ; and, being a man of far greater 
ability, knew as well how to manage him, as a clever keeper 
may know how to manage a wolf or a tiger, or an}' other 
cruel and uncertain beast, that may turn upon him and tear 
him any day. Never had there been seen in England such 
state as my Lord Cardinal kept. His wealth was enormous ; 



284 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

equal, it was reckoned, to the riches of the Crown. His pal- 
aces were as splendid as the King's, and his retinue was eight 
hundred strong. He held his Court, dressed out from top to 
toe in flaming scarlet ; and his very shoes were golden, set 
with precious stones. His followers rode on blood horses ; 
while he, with a wonderful affectation of humility in the midst 
of his great splendor, ambled on a mule with a red-velvet 
saddle and bridle and golden stirrups. 

Through the influence of this stately priest, a grand meet- 
ing was arranged to take place between the French and Eng- 
lish Kings, in France ; but on ground belonging to England. 
A prodigious show of friendship and rejoicing was to be made 
on the occasion ; and heralds were sent to proclaim with 
brazen trumpets through all the principal cities of Europe, 
that, on a certain da} T , the Kings of France and England, as 
companions and brothers in arms, each attended by eighteen 
followers, would hold a tournament against all knights who 
might choose to come. 

Charles, the new Emperor of Germairy (the old one being 
dead), wanted to prevent too cordial an alliance between 
these sovereigns, and came over to England before the King 
could repair to the place of meeting ; and, besides making an 
agreeable impression upon him, secured Wolsey's interest 03- 
promising that his influence should make him Pope when the 
next vacancy occurred. On the day when the Emperor left 
England, the King and all the Court went over to Calais, and 
thence to the place of meeting, between Ardres and Guisnes, 
commonly called the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Here, all 
manner of expense and prodigality was lavished on the dec- 
orations of the show ; many of the knights and gentlemen 
being so superbly dressed that it was said they carried their 
whole estates upon their shoulders. 

There were sham castles, temporaiy chapels, fountains 
running wine, great cellars full of wine free as water to all 
comers, silk tents, gold lace and foil, gilt lions, and such 
things without end ; and, in the midst of all, the rich Cardinal 



HENRY THE EIGHTH. 285 

out-shone and ont-glittered all the noblemen and gentle- 
men assembled. After a treaty made between the two Kings 
with as much solemnity as if the}' had intended to keep it, the 
lists — nine hundred feet long, and three hundred and twenty- 
broad — were opened for the tournament ; the Queens of 
France and England looking on with great array of lords and 
ladies. Then, for ten clays, the two sovereigns fought five 
combats eveiy day, and always beat their polite adversaries ; 
though they do write that the King of England, being thrown 
in a wrestle one day by the King of France, lost his kingly 
temper with his brother in arms, and wanted to make a quar- 
rel of it. Then, there is a great story belonging to this Field 
of the Cloth of Gold, showing how the English were distrust- 
ful of the French, and the French of the English, until 
Francis rode alone one morning to Henry's tent ; and, going 
in before he was out of bed, told him in joke that he was his 
prisoner ; and how Henr}' jumped out of bed and embraced 
Francis ; and how Francis helped Henry to dress, and warmed 
his linen for him ; and how Hemy gave Francis a splendid 
jewelled collar, and how Francis gave Henry, in return, a 
costly bracelet. All this and a great-deal more was so written 
about, and sung about, and talked about at that time (and, 
indeed, since that time too), that the world has had good 
cause to be sick of it, for ever. 

Of course, nothing came of all these fine doings but a 
speed}' renewal of the war between England and France, in 
which the two Ro}'al companions and brothers in arms longed 
veiy earnestly to damage one another. But, before it broke 
out again, the Duke of Buckingham was shamefully executed 
on Tower Hill, on the evidence of a discharged servant, really 
for nothing, except the folly of having believed in a friar of 
the name of Hopkins, who had pretended to be a prophet, 
and who had mumbled and jumbled out some nonsense about 
the Duke's son being destined to be veiy great in the land. 
It was believed that the unfortunate Duke had given offence 
to the great Cardinal by expressing his mind freely about the 



286 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

expense and' absurdity of the whole business of the Field 
of the Cloth of Gold. At any rate, he was beheaded, as I 
have said, for nothing. And the people who saw it clone 
were very angry, and cried out that it was the work of ' ' the 
butcher's son ! " 

The new war was a short one, though the Earl of Surrey 
invaded France again, and did some injury to that countiy. 
It ended in another treaty of peace between the two king- 
doms, and in the discovery that the Emperor of Germany was 
not such a good friend to England in reality, as he pre- 
tended to be. Neither did he keep his promise to Wolsey to 
make him Pope, though the King urged it. Two Popes died 
in pretty quick succession ; but the foreign priests were too 
much for the Cardinal, and kept him out of the post. So the 
Cardinal and King together found out that the Emperor 
of Germany was not a man to keep faith with ; broke off a 
projected marriage between the King's daughter Mary, Prin- 
cess of Wales, and that sovereign ; and began to consider 
whether it might not be well to marry the young lady, either 
to Francis himself, or to his eldest son. 

There now arose at Wittemberg, in Germany, the great 
leader of the mighty change in England which is called the 
Keformation, and which set the people free from their slavery 
to the priests. This was a learned Doctor, named Martin 
Luther, who knew all about them, for he had been a priest, 
and even a monk, himself. The preaching and writing of 
Wickliffe had set a number of men thinking on this subject ; 
and Luther, finding one day to his great surprise, that there 
realty was a book called the New Testament which the priests 
did not allow to be read, and which contained truths that 
the} 7 suppressed, began to be very vigorous against the whole 
body, from the Pope downward. It happened, while he was 
yet only beginning his vast work of awakening the nation, 
that an impudent fellow named Tetzel, a friar of veiy bad 
character, came into his neighborhood selling what were 
called Indulgences, by wholesale, to raise money for beauti- 



HENRY THE EIGHTH. 287 

fying the great Cathedral of St. Peter's, at Rome. Whoever 
bought an Indulgence of the Pope was supposed to buy him- 
self off from the punishment of Heaven for his offences. Lu- 
ther told the people that these Indulgences were worthless 
bits of paper, before God, and that Tetzel and his masters 
were a crew of impostors in selling them. 

The King and the Cardinal were mightity indignant at this 
presumption ; and the King (with the help of Sir Thomas 
More, a wise man, whom he afterwards repaid b} T striking 
off his head) even wrote a book about it, with which the Pope 
was so well pleased that he gave the King the title of De- 
fender of the Faith. The King and the Cardinal also issued 
flaming warnings to the people not to read Luther's books, 
on pain of excommunication. But they did read them for all 
that; and the rumor of what was in them spread far and 
wide. 

When this great change was thus going on, the King began 
to show himself in his truest and worst colors. Anne Boleyn, 
the pretty little girl who had gone abroad to France with his 
sister, was by this time grown up to be very beautiful, and 
was one of the ladies in attendance on Queen Catherine. 
Now, Queen Catherine was no longer 3'oung or handsome, 
and it is likely that she was not particularly good-tempered ; 
having been always rather melancholy, and having been made 
more so "try the deaths of four of her children when they were 
very young. So, the King fell in love with the fair Anne 
Boleyn, and said to himself, " How can I be best rid of my 
own troublesome wife whom I am tired of, and many 
Anne ? " 

You recollect that Queen Catherine had been the wife of 
Henry's brother. What does the King do, after thinking it 
over, but calls his favorite priests about him, and saj's, O ! 
his mind is in such a dreadful state, and he is so frightfully 
uneasy, because he is afraid it was not lawful for him to marry 
the Queen ! Not one of those priests had the courage to 
hint that it was rather curious he had never thought of that 



288 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

before, and that his mind seemed to have been in a tolerably 
jolty condition during a great many years, in which he cer- 
tainty had not fretted himself thin ; but, they all said, Ah ! 
that was very true, and it was a serious business : and per- 
haps the best way to make it right, would be for his Majesty 
to be divorced ! The King replied, Yes, he thought that 
would be the best wa}', certainly ; so they all went to work. 

If I were to relate to } r ou the intrigues and plots that took 
place in the endeavor to get this divorce, you would think the 
Histoiy of England the most tiresome book in the world. So 
I shall say no more, than that after a vast deal of negotiation 
and evasion, the Pope issued a commission to Cardinal Wol- 
sey and Cardinal Campeggio (whom he sent over from Italy 
for the purpose) to try the whole case in England. It is 
supposed — and I think with reason — that Wolsey was the 
Queen's enem3 r , because she had reproved him for his proud 
and gorgeous manner of life. But, he did not at first know 
that the King wanted to marry Anne Bolejm ; and when he 
did know it, he even went down on his knees, in the endeavor 
to dissuade him. 

The Cardinals opened their court in the Convent of the 
Black Friars, near to where the bridge of that name in 
London now stands ; and the King and Queen, that the}? - 
might be near it, took up their lodgings at the adjoining pal- 
ace of Bridewell, of which nothing now remains but a bad 
prison. On the opening of the court, when the King and 
Queen were called on to appear, that poor ill-used lady, with 
a dignity and firmness and } T et with a womanly affection 
worthy to be always admired, went and kneeled at the King's 
feet, and said that she had come, a stranger, to his domin- 
ions ; that she had been a good and true wife to him for 
twenty 3 r ears : and that she could acknowledge no power in 
those Cardinals to tiy whether she should be considered his 
wife after all that time, or should be put away. With that, 
she got up and left the court, and would never afterwards 
come back to it. 



HENRY THE EIGHTH. 289 

The King pretended to be very much overcome, and said, 
O ! my lords and gentlemen, what a good woman she was to 
be sure, and how delighted he would be to live with her unto 
death, but for that terrible uneasiness in his mind which was 
quite wearing him away ! So, the case went on, and there 
was nothing but talk for two months. Then Cardinal Cam- 
peggio, who, on behalf of the Pope, wanted nothing so much 
as delay, adjourned it for two more months ; and before that 
time was elapsed, the Pope himself adjourned it indefinitely, 
by requiring the King and Queen to come to Rome and have 
it tried there. But by good luck for the King, word was 
brought to him by some of his people, that they had hap- 
pened to meet at supper, Thomas Cranmer, a learned Doctor 
of Cambridge, who had proposed to urge the Pope on, by re- 
ferring the case to all the learned doctors and bishops, here 
and there and everywhere, and getting their opinions that the 
King's marriage was unlawful. The King, who was now in 
a hurry to marry Anne Boleyn, thought this such a good idea, 
that he sent for Cranmer, post haste, and said to Lord Roch- 
fort, Anne Boleyn's father, " Take this learned Doctor down 
to your country-house, and there let him have a good room 
for a study, and no end of books out of which to prove that I 
may marry your daughter." Lord Rochfort, not at all reluc- 
tant, made the learned Doctor as comfortable as he could ; and 
the learned Doctor went to work to prove his case. All this 
time, the King and Anne Boleyn were writing letters to one 
another almost daity, full of impatience to have the case 
settled ; and Anne Bolej-n was showing herself (as I think) 
very worthy of the fate which afterwards befell her. 

It was bad for Cardinal Wolsey that he had left Cranmer 
to render this help. It was worse for him that he had tried 
to dissuade the King from marrying Anne Bole} r n. Such a 
servant as he, to such a master as Henry, would probably 
have fallen in any case ; but, between the hatred of the party of 
the Queen that was, and the hatred of the party of the Queen 
that was to be, he fell suddenly and heavily. Going down 

19 



290 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

one day to the Court of Chancery, where he now presided, 
he was waited upon by the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, 
who told him that they brought an order to him to resign that 
office, and to withdraw quietly to a house he had at Esher, in 
Surrey. The Cardinal refusing, they rode off to the King ; 
and next day came back with a letter from him, on reading 
which, the Cardinal submitted. An inventory was made out 
of all the riches in his palace at York Place (now Whitehall) , 
and he went sorrowfully up the river, in his barge, to Putney. 
An abject man he was, in spite of his pride ; for being 
overtaken, riding out of that place towards Esher, bj r one of 
the King's chamberlains who brought him a kind message and 
a ring, he alighted from his mule, took off his cap, and 
kneeled down in the dirt. His poor Fool, whom in his pros- 
perous days he had always kept in his palace to entertain 
him, cut a far better figure than he ; for, when the Cardinal 
said to the chamberlain that he had nothing to send to his 
lord the King as a present, but that jester who was a most 
excellent one, it took six strong yeomen to remove the faith- 
ful fool from his master. 

The once proud Cardinal was soon further disgraced, and 
wrote the most abject letters to his vile sovereign ; who hum- 
bled him one day and encouraged him the next, according to 
his humor, until he was at last ordered to go and reside in 
his diocese of York. He said he was too poor ; but I don't 
know how he made that out, for he took a hundred and sixty 
servants with him, and seventy- two cart-loads of furniture, 
food, and wine. He remained in that part of the country 
for the best part of a year, and showed himself so improved 
by his misfortunes, and was so mild and so conciliating, that 
he won all hearts. And indeed, even in his proud days, he 
had done some magnificent things for learning and education. 
At last, he was arrested for high treason ; and, coming slowly 
on his journey towards London, got as far as Leicester. Ar- 
riving at Leicester Abbey after dark, and very ill, he said — 
when the monks came out at the gate with lighted torches to 



HENRY THE EIGHTH. 291 

receive him — that he had come to lay his bones among them. 
He had indeed ; for he was taken to a bed, from which he 
never rose again. His last words were, " Had I but served 
God as diligently as I have served the King, He would not 
have given me over, in nry gray hairs. Howbeit, this is my 
just reward for my pains and diligence, not regarding my 
service to God, but only my duty to my prince." The news 
of his death was quickly carried to the King, who was amus- 
ing himself with archery in the garden of the magnificent 
palace at Hampton Court, which that very Wolsey had pre- 
sented to him. The greatest emotion his royal mind dis- 
played at the loss of a servant so faithful and so ruined, was 
a particular desire to lay hold of fifteen hundred pounds which 
the Cardinal was reported to have hidden somewhere. 

The opinions concerning the divorce, of the learned doc- 
tors and bishops and others, being at last collected, and being 
generally in the King's favor, were forwarded to the Pope, 
with an entreaty that he would now grant it. The unfortu- 
nate Pope, who was a timid man, was half distracted between 
his fear of his authority being set aside in England if he did 
not do as he was asked, and his dread of offending the Em- 
peror of Germany, who was Queen Catherine's nephew. In 
this state of mind he still evaded and did nothing. Then, 
Thomas Cromwell, who had been one of Wolsey's faithful 
attendants, and had remained so even in his decline, advised 
the King to take the matter into his own hands, and make 
himself the head of the whole Church. This, the King by 
various artful means, began to do ; but he recompensed the 
clergy by allowing them to burn as mairy people as they 
pleased, for holding Luther's opinions. You must under- 
stand that Sir Thomas More, the wise man who had helped 
the King with his book, had been made Chancellor in Wol- 
se}-'s place. But, as he was trury attached to the Church 
as it was even in its abuses, he, in this state of things, re- 
signed. 

Being now quite resolved to get rid of Queen Catherine, 



292 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

and to marry Anne Boleyn without more ado, the King made 
Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury, and directed Queen 
Catherine to leave the Court. She obeyed ; but replied that 
wherever she went, she was Queen of England still, and 
would remain so, to the last. The King then married Anne 
Boleyn privately ; and the new Archbishop of Canterbury, 
within half a year, declared his marriage with Queen Cathe- 
rine void, and crowned Anne Boleyn Queen. 

She might have known that no good could ever come from 
such wrong, and that the corpulent brute who had been so 
faithless and so cruel to his first wife, could be more faithless 
and more cruel to his second. She might have known that, 
even when he was in love with her, he had been a mean and 
selfish coward, running away, like a frightened cur, from her 
society and her house, when a dangerous sickness broke out 
in it, and when she might easily have taken it and died, as 
several of the household did. But, Anne Boleyn arrived at 
all this knowledge too late, and bought it at a dear price. 
Her bad marriage with a worse man came to its natural end. 
Its natural end was not, as we shall too soon see, a natural 
death for her. 



HENRY THE EIGHTH. 293 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE EIGHTH. 

Part the Second. 

The Pope was thrown into a very angry state of mind 
when he heard of the King's marriage, and fumed exceed- 
ingly. Many of the English monks and friars, seeing that 
their order was in danger, did the same ; some even declaimed 
against the King in church before his face, and were not to 
be stopped until he himself roared out ' ' Silence ! " The 
King, not much the worse for this, took it pretty quietly ; 
and was very glad when his Queen gave birth to a daughter, 
who was christened Elizabeth, and declared Princess of 
Wales as her sister Mary had already been. 

One of the most atrocious features of this reign was that 
Henry the Eighth was always trimming between the reformed 
religion and the unreformed one ; so that the more he quar- 
relled with the Pope, the more of his own subjects he roasted 
alive for not holding the Pope's opinions. Thus, an unfortu- 
nate student named John Frith, and a poor simple tailor 
named Andrew Hewet who loved him very much, and said 
that whatever John Frith believed he believed, were burnt 
in Smithfield — to show what a capital Christian the King 
was. 

But, these were speedily followed by two much greater 
victims, Sir Thomas More, and John Fisher, the Bishop of 
Rochester. The latter, who was a good and amiable old 
man, had committed no greater offence than believing in 
Elizabeth Barton, called the Maid of Kent — another of those 



294 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

ridiculous women who pretended to be inspired, and to make 
all sorts of heavenly revelations, though they indeed uttered 
nothing but evil nonsense. For this offence — as it was pre- 
tended, but really for denying the King to be the supreme 
Head of the Church — he got into trouble, and was put in 
prison ; but, even then, he might have been suffered to die 
naturally (short work having been made of executing the 
Kentish Maid and her principal followers), but that the Pope, 
to spite the King, resolved to make him a cardinal. Upon 
that the King made a ferocious joke to the effect that the 
Pope might send Fisher a red hat — which is the way they 
make a cardinal — but he should have no head on which to 
wear it ; and he was tried with all unfairness and injustice, 
and sentenced to death. He died like a noble and virtuous 
old man, and left a worthy name behind him. The King 
supposed, I dare say, that Sir Thomas More would be fright- 
ened by this example ; but, as he was not to be easily ter- 
rified, and, thoroughly believing in the Pope, had made up 
his mind that the King was not the rightful Head of the 
Church, he positively refused to say that he was. For this 
crime he too was tried and sentenced, after having been in 
prison a whole year. When he was doomed 4tf death, and 
came away from his trial with the edge of the executioner's 
axe turned towards him — as was always done in those times 
when a state prisoner came to that hopeless pass — he bore it 
quite serenely, and gave his blessing to his son, who pressed 
through the crowd in Westminster Hall and kneeled down to 
receive it. But, when he got to the Tower Wharf on his 
way back to his prison, and his favorite daughter, Margaret 
Roper, a very good woman, rushed through the guards again 
and again, to kiss him and to weep upon his neck, he was 
overcome at last. He soon recovered, and never more 
showed airy feeling but cheerfulness and courage. When he 
was going up the steps of the scaffold to his death, he said 
jokingly to the Lieutenant of the Tower, observing that they 
were weak and shook beneath his tread, " I pray you, mas- 



HENRY THE EIGHTH. 295 

ter Lieutenant, see me safe up ; and, for my coming down, 1 
can shift for myself." Also he said to the executioner, aftei 
he had laid his head upon the block, " Let me put my beard 
out of the way ; for that, at least, has never committed any 
treason." Then his head was struck off at a blow. These 
two executions were worthy of King Henry the Eighth. Sir 
Thomas More was one of the most virtuous men in his do- 
minions, and the Bishop was one of his oldest and truest 
friends. But to be a friend of that fellow was almost as 
dangerous as to be his wife. 

When the news of these two murders got to Rome, the 
Pope raged against the murderer more than ever Pope raged 
since the world began, and prepared a Bull, ordering his sub- 
jects to take arms against him and dethrone him. The King 
took all possible precautions to keep that document out of 
his dominions, and set to work in return to suppress a great 
number of the English monasteries and abbeys. 

This destruction was begun by a body of commissioners, 
of whom Cromwell (whom the King had taken into great 
favor) was the head ; and was carried on through some few 
years to its entire completion. There is no doubt that many 
of these religious establishments were religious in nothing but 
in name, and were crammed with lazy, indolent, and sensual 
monks. There is no doubt that they imposed upon the peo- 
ple in every possible way ; that they had images moved by 
wires, which they pretended were miraculously moved by 
Heaven ; that the} 7 had among them a whole tun measure 
full of teeth, all purporting to have come out of the head of 
one saint, who must indeed have been a very extraordinary 
person with that enormous allowance of grinders ; that they 
had bits of coal which they said had fried Saint Lawrence, 
and bits of toe-nails which the} T said belonged to other 
famous saints ; penknives, and boots, and girdles, which 
the} 7 said belonged to others ; and that all these bits of rub- 
bish were called Relics, and adored by the ignorant people. 
But, on the other hand, there is no doubt either, that the 



296 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

King's officers and men punished the good monks with the 
bad ; did great injustice ; demolished many beautiful things 
and many valuable libraries ; destined numbers of paintings, 
stained glass windows, fine pavements, and carvings ; and 
that the whole court were ravenously greed}' and rapacious 
for the division of this great spoil among them. The King 
seems to have grown almost mad in the ardor of this pursuit ; 
for he declared Thomas a Becket a traitor, though he had 
been dead so many 3'ears, and had his body dug up out of 
his grave. He must have been as miraculous as the monks 
pretended, if they had told the truth, for he was found with 
one head on his shoulders, and they had shown another as 
his undoubted and genuine head ever since his death ; it 
had brought them vast sums of money, too. The gold and 
jewels on his shrine filled two great chests, and eight men 
tottered as they carried them awa}\ How rich the monas- 
teries were you may infer from the fact that, when they 
were all suppressed, one hundred and thirty thousand pounds 
a 3'ear — in those days an immense sum — came to the 
Crown. 

These things were not done without causing great discon- 
tent among the people. The monks had been good landlords 
and hospitable entertainers of all travellers, and had been 
accustomed to give away a great deal of corn, and fruit, and 
meat, and other things. In those days it was difficult to 
change goods into mone}^, in consequence of the roads being 
very few and very bad, and the carts and wagons of the worst 
description ; and they must either have given away some of 
the good things they possessed in enormous quantities, or 
have suffered them to spoil and moulder. So, many of the 
people missed what it was more agreeable to get idly than to 
work for ; and the monks who were driven out of their homes 
and wandered about encouraged their discontent ; and there 
were, consequently, great risings in Lincolnshire and York- 
shire. These were put down by terrific executions, from 
which the monks themselves did not escape, and the King 



HENRY THE EIGHTH. 297 

went on grunting and growling in his own fat way, like a 
Royal pig. 

I have told all this story of the religious houses at one 
time, to make it plainer, and to get back to the King's 
domestic affairs. 

The unfortunate Queen Catherine was b} T this time dead ; 
and the King was by this time as tired of his second Queen 
as he had been of his first. As he had fallen in love with 
Anne when she was in the service of Catherine, so he now 
fell in love with another lady in the service of Anne. See 
how wicked deeds are punished, and how bitterly and self- 
reproachfully the Queen must now have thought of her own 
rise to the throne ! The new fancy was a Lady Jane Sey- 
mour ; and the King no sooner set his mind on her, than he 
resolved to have Anne Bonn's head. So, he brought a 
number of charges against Anne, accusing her of dreadful 
crimes which she had never committed, and implicating in 
them her own brother and certain gentlemen in her service : 
among whom one Norris, and Mark Smeaton a musician, are 
best remembered. As the lords and councillors were as 
afraid of the King and as subservient to him as the meanest 
peasant in England was, they brought in Anne Boleyn guilty, 
and the other unfortunate persons accused with her, guilty 
too. Those gentlemen died like men, with the exception of 
Smeaton, who had been tempted by the King into telling 
lies, which he called confessions, and who had expected to 
be pardoned ; but who, I am very glad to sa}~, was not. 
There was then only the Queen to dispose of. She had been 
surrounded in the Tower with women spies ; had been mon- 
strously persecuted and foulfy slandered ; and had received 
no justice. But her spirit rose with her afflictions ; and, 
after having in vain tried to soften the King by writing an 
affecting letter to him which still exists, "from her doleful 
prison in the Tower," she resigned herself to death. She 
said to those about her, very cheerfully, that she had heard 
say the executioner was a good one, and that she had a little 



298 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

neck (she laughed and clasped it with her hands as she said 
that), and would soon be out of her pain. And she was 
soon out of her pain, poor creature, on the Green inside the 
Tower, and her body was flung into an old box and put away 
in the ground under the chapel. 

There is a story that the King sat in his palace listening 
veiy anxiously for the sound of the cannon which was to 
announce this new murder ; and that, when he heard it come 
booming on the air, he rose up in great spirits and ordered 
out his dogs to go a-hunting. He was bad enough to do it ; 
but whether he did it or not, it is certain that he married 
Jane Se} T mour the very next da}^ 

I have not much pleasure in recording that she lived just 
long enough to give birth to a son who was christened 
Edward, and then to die of a fever : for, I cannot but think 
that any woman who married such a ruffian, and knew what 
innocent blood was on his hands, deserved the axe that 
would assuredly have fallen on the neck of Jane Seymour, 
if she had lived much longer. 

Cranmer had done what he could to save some of the 
Church property for purposes of religion and education ; but, 
the great families had been so hungry to get hold of it, that 
very little could be rescued for such objects. Even Miles 
Coverdale, who did the people the inestimable service of 
translating the Bible into English (which the unreformed 
religion never permitted to be done), was left in poverty 
while the great families clutched the Church lands and 
money. The people had been told that when the Crown 
came into possession of these funds, it would not be neces- 
sar}^ to tax them ; but they were taxed afresh directly after- 
wards. It was fortunate for them, indeed, that so many 
nobles were so greedy for this wealth ; since, if it had re- 
mained with the Crown, there might have been no end to 
tyranny for hundreds of 3'ears. One of the most active 
writers on the Church's side against the King was a member 
of his own family — a sort of distant cousin, Reginald Pole 



HENRY THE EIGHTH. 299 

by name — who attacked him in the most violent manner 
(though he received a pension from him all the time), and 
fought for the Church with his pen, day and night. As he 
was beyond the King's reach — being in Italy — the King 
politely invited him over to discuss the subject ; but he, 
knowing better than to come, and wisely sta}ang where he 
was, the King's rage fell upon his brother Lord Montague, 
the Marquis of Exeter, and some other gentlemen : who 
were tried for high treason in corresponding with him and 
aiding him — which they probably did — and were all exe- 
cuted. The Pope made Reginald Pole a cardinal ; but, so 
much against his will, that it is thought he even aspired in 
his own mind to the vacant throne of England, and had 
hopes of marrying the Princess Mary. His being made a 
high priest, however, put an end to all that. His mother, 
the venerable Countess of Salisbury — who was, unfortu- 
nately for herself, within the tjTant's reach — was the last 
of his relatives on whom his wrath fell. When she was told 
to la} 7 her gray head upon the block, she answered the 
executioner, "No! My head never committed treason, and 
if 3'ou want it, } t ou shall seize it." So, she ran round and 
round the scaffold with the executioner striking at her, and 
her gray hair bedabbled with blood ; and even when they held 
her down upon the block she moved her head about to the. 
last, resolved to be no paily to her own barbarous murder. 
All this the people bore, as they had borne everything else. 

Indeed they bore much more ; for the slow fires of Smith- 
field were continually burning, and people were constantly 
being roasted to death — still to show what a good Christian 
the King was. He defied the Pope and his Bull, which was 
now issued, and had come into England ; but he burned 
innumerable people whose only offence was that they differed 
from the Pope's religious opinions. There was a wretched 
man named Lambert, among others, who was tried for this 
before the King, and with whom six bishops argued one 
after another. When he was quite exhausted (as well he 



300 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

might be, after six bishops) , lie threw himself on the King's 
mercy ; but the King blustered out that he had no mere}' ; 
for heretics. So, he too fed the fire. 

All this the people bore, and more than all this yet. The 
national spirit seems to have been banished from the kingdom 
at this time. The very people who were executed for treason, 
the very wives and friends of the " bluff" King, spoke of him 
on the scaffold as a good prince, and a gentle prince — just as 
serfs in similar circumstances have been known to do, under 
the Sultans and Bashaws of the East, or under the fierce old 
tjTants of Russia, who poured boiling and freezing water on 
them alternately, until they died. The Parliament were as 
bad as the rest, and gave the King whatever he wanted ; among 
other vile accommodations, they gave him new powers of 
murdering, at his will and pleasure, any one whom he might 
choose to call a traitor. But the worst measure they passed 
was an Act of Six Articles, commonly called at the time 
" the whip with six strings ; " which punished offences 
against the Pope's opinions, without mere}', and enforced the 
very worst parts of the monkish religion. Cranmer would 
have modified it, if he could ; but, being overborne by the 
Romish party, had not the power. As one of the articles 
declared that priests should not marry, and as he was mar- 
ried himself, he sent his wife and children into Germany, 
and began to tremble at his danger ; none the less because 
he was, and had long been, the King's friend. This whip of 
six strings was made under the King's own e}'e. It should 
never be forgotten of him how cruelly he supported the worst 
of the Popish doctrines when there was nothing to be got 
hj opposing them. 

This amiable monarch now thought of taking another wife. 
He proposed to the French King to have some of the ladies 
of the French Court exhibited before him, that he might make 
his Royal choice ; but the French King answered that he 
would rather not have his ladies trotted out to be shown like 
horses at a fair. He proposed to the Duchess Dowager of 



HENRY THE EIGHTH. 301 

Milan, who replied that she might have thought of such a 
match if she had had two heads ; but, that only owning one, 
she must beg to keep it safe. At last Cromwell represented 
that there was a Protestant Princess in Germany — those who 
held the reformed religion were called Protestants, because 
their leaders had Protested against the abuses and impositions 
of the unreformed Church — named Anne of Cleves, who 
was beautiful, and would answer the purpose admirabh*. 
The King said was she a large woman, because he must have 
a fat wife? " O yes," said Cromwell, " she was very large, 
just the thing." On hearing this, the King sent over his 
famous painter, Hans Holbein, to take her portrait. Hans 
made her out to be so good-looking that the King was satis- 
fied, and the marriage was arranged. But, whether anybod} T 
had paid Hans to touch up the picture ; or whether Hans, like 
one or two other painters, flattered a princess in the ordinary 
way of business, I cannot say : all I know is, that when 
Anne came over and the King went to Rochester to meet her, 
and first saw her without her seeing him, he swore she was 
"a great Flanders mare," and said he would never marry 
her. Being obliged to do it now matters had gone so far, he 
would not give her the presents he had prepared, and would 
ik ver notice her. He never forgave Cromwell his part in the 
affair. His downfall dates from that time. 

It was quickened by his enemies in the interests of the un- 
reformed religion, putting in the King's way, at a state din- 
ner, a niece of the Duke of Norfolk, Catharine Howard, a 
young lady of fascinating manners, though small in stature 
and not particularly beautiful. Falling in love with her on 
the spot, the King soon divorced Anne of Cleves after 
making her the subject of much brutal talk, on pretence that 
she had been previously betrothed to some one else — which 
would never do for one of his dignity — and married Cathe- 
rine. It is probable that on his wedding-da}', of all days in 
the year, he sent his faithful Cromwell to the scaffold and had 
his head struck off. He further celebrated the occasion by 



302 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

burning at one time, and causing to be drawn to the fire on 
the same hurdles, some Protestant prisoners for denying the 
Pope's doctrines, and some Roman Catholic prisoners for 
denying his own supremacj^. Still the people bore it, and 
not a gentleman in England raised his hand. 

But, by a just retribution, it soon came out that Catherine 
Howard, before her marriage, had been really guilty of such 
crimes as the King had falsely attributed to his second wife 
Anne Boleyn ; so, again the dreadful axe made the King a 
widower, and this Queen passed away as so many in that 
reign had passed away before her. As an appropriate pur- 
suit under the circumstances, Henry then applied himself to 
superintending the composition of a religious book called " A 
necessary doctrine for any Christian Man." He must have been 
a little confused in his mind, I think, at about this period ; 
for he was so false to himself as to be true to some one : that 
some one being Cranmer, whom the Duke of Norfolk and 
others of his enemies tried to ruin; but to whom the King 
was steadfast, and to whom he one night gave his ring, 
charging him when he should find himself, next clay, accused 
of treason, to show it to the council board. This Cranmer 
did to the confusion of his enemies. I suppose the King 
thought he might want him a little longer. 

He married yet once more. Yes, strange to sa} T , he found 
in England another woman who would become his wife, and 
she was Catherine Parr, widow of Lord Latimer. She 
leaned towards the reformed religion ; and it is some comfort 
to know, that she tormented the King considerably by argu- 
ing a variety of doctrinal points with him on all possible 
occasions. She had very nearly done this to her own de- 
struction. After one of these conversations the King in a 
very black mood actually instructed Gardiner, one of his 
Bishops who favored the Popish opinions, to draw a bill of 
accusation against her, which would have inevitably brought 
her to the scaffold where her predecessors had died, but that 
one of her friends picked up the paper of instructions which 







DEATH OF ANNE ASKEW. 



HENRY THE EIGHTH. 303 

had been dropped in the palace, and gave her timely notice. 
She fell ill with terror ; but managed the King so well when 
he came to entrap her into further statements — b}' saying 
that she had onl} T spoken on such points to divert his mind 
and to get some information from his extraordinary wisdom — 
that he gave her a kiss and called her his sweetheart. And, 
when the Chancellor came next daj T actually to take her to 
the Tower, the King sent him about his business, and honored 
him with the epithets of a beast, a knave, and a fool. So 
near was Catherine Parr to the block, and so narrow was her 
escape ! 

There was war with Scotland in this reign, and a short 
clumsy war with France for favoring Scotland ; but, the 
events at home were so dreadful, and leave such an enduring 
stain on the countiy, that I need say no more of what hap- 
pened abroad. 

A few more horrors, and this reign is over. There was a 
lady, Axne Askew, in Lincolnshire, who inclined to the 
Protestant opinions, and whose husband being a fierce Catho- 
lic, turned her out of his house. She came to London, and 
was considered as offending against the six articles, and was 
taken to the Tower, and put upon the rack — probabfv be- 
cause it was hoped that she might, in her agony, criminate 
some obnoxious persons ; if falsely, so much the better. She 
was tortured without uttering a cry, until the Lieutenant of 
the Tower would suffer his men to torture her no more ; and 
then two priests who were present actually -pulled off their 
robes, and turned the wheels of the rack with their own hands, 
so rending and twisting and breaking her that she was after- 
wards carried to the fire in a chair. She was burned with 
three others, a gentleman, a clergyman, and a tailor ; and so 
the world went on. 

Either the King became afraid of the power of the Duke of 
Norfolk, and his son the Earl of Surrey, or the}^ gave him 
some offence, but he resolved to pull them down, to follow all 
the rest who were gone. The son was tried first — of course 



304 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

for nothing — and defended himself bravely ; but of course 
he was found guilt}', and of course he was executed. Then 
his father was laid hold of, and left for death too. 

But the King himself was left for death by a Greater King, 
and the earth was to be rid of him at last. He was now a 
swollen, hideous spectacle, with a great hole in his leg, and 
so odious to every sense that it was dreadful to approach him. 
When he was found to be d3 r ing, Cranmer was sent for from 
his palace at Croydon, and came with all speed, but found 
him speechless. Happily, in that hour he perished. He was 
in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and the thirty-eighth of his 
reign. 

Henry the Eighth has been favored by some Protestant 
writers, because the Reformation was achieved in his time. 
But the mighty merit of it lies with other men and not with 
him ; and it can be rendered none the worse by this monster's 
crimes, and none the better by any defence of them. The 
plain truth is, that he was a most intolerable ruffian, a dis- 
grace to human nature, and a blot of blood and grease upon 
the history of England. 



EDWARD THE SIXTH. 305 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD 1HE SIXTH. 

Henry the Eighth had made a will, appointing a council 
of sixteen to govern the kingdom for his son while he was 
under age (he was now only ten years old), and another 
council of twelve to help them. The most powerful of the 
first council was the Earl of Hertford, the young King's 
uncle, who lost no time in bringing his nephew with great 
state up to Enfield, and thence to the Tower. It was con- 
sidered at the time a striking proof of virtue in the } T oung 
King that he was sorry for his father's death ; but, as com- 
nion subjects have that virtue too sometimes, we will say no 
more about it. 

There was a curious part of the late King's will, requiring 
his executors to fulfil whatever promises he had made. Some 
of the court wondering what these might be, the Earl of 
Hertford and the other noblemen interested, said that they 
w r ere promises to advance and enrich them. So, the Earl of 
Hertford made himself Duke of Somerset, and made his 
brother Edward Seymour a baron ; and there were various 
similar promotions, all very agreeable to the parties con- 
cerned, and very dutiful, no doubt, to the late King's memor}'. 
To be more dutiful still, they made themselves rich out of 
the Church lands, and were very comfortable. The new 
Duke of Somerset caused himself to be declared Protector 
of the kingdom, and was, indeed, the King. 

As young Edward the Sixth had been brought up in the 
principles of the Protestant religion, everybody knew that 
they would be maintained. But Cranmer, to whom they were 

20 



306 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

chiefly entrusted, advanced them steadily and temperately. 
Many superstitious and ridiculous practices were stopped ; 
but practices which were harmless were not interfered 
with. 

The Duke of Somerset, the Protector, was anxious to have 
the young King engaged in marriage to the young Queen of 
Scotland, in order to prevent that princess from making an 
alliance with any foreign power ; but, as a large party in 
Scotland were unfavorable to this plan, he invaded that coun- 
tiy. His excuse for doing so was, that the Border men — 
that is, the Scotch who lived in that part of the country where 
England and Scotland joined — troubled the English very 
much. But there were two sides to this question ; for the 
English Border men troubled the Scotch too ; and, through 
many long years, there were perpetual border quarrels which 
gave rise to numbers of old tales and songs. However, the 
Protector invaded Scotland ; and Arran, the Scottish Regent, 
with an army twice as large as his, advanced to meet him. 
The}' encountered on the banks of the river Esk, within a few 
miles of Edinburgh ; and there, after a little skirmish, the 
Protector made such moderate proposals, in offering to retire 
if the Scotch would only engage not to marry their princess 
to any foreign prince, that the Regent thought the English 
were afraid. But in this he made a horrible mistake ; for the 
English soldiers on land, and the English sailors on the 
water, so set upon the Scotch, that they broke and fled, and 
more than ten thousand of them were killed. It was a dread- 
ful battle, for the fugitives were slain without mercy. The 
ground for four miles, all the way to Edinburgh, was strewn 
with dead men, and with arms, and legs, and heads. Some 
hid themselves in streams and were drowned; some threw 
away their armor and were killed running, almost naked; 
but in this battle of Pinkey the English lost only two or three 
hundred men. They were much better clothed than the 
Scotch ; at the poverty of whose appearance and country they 
were exceedingly astonished. 



EDWARD THE SIXTH. 307 

A Parliament was called when Somerset came back, and it 
repealed the whip with six strings, and did one or two other 
good things ; though it unhappily retained the punishment of 
burning for those people who did not make believe to believe, 
in all religious matters, what the Government had declared 
that they must and should believe. It also made a foolish 
law (meant to put down beggars) , that any man who lived 
idly and loitered about for three days together, should be 
burned with a hot iron, made a slave, and wear an iron fetter. 
Bat this savage absurdity soon came to an end, and went the 
way of a great many other foolish laws. 

The Protector was now so proud that he sat in Parliament 
before all the nobles, on the right hand of the throne. Many 
other noblemen, who only wanted to be as proud if they could 
get a* chance, became his enemies of course ; and it is sup- 
posed that he came back suddenly from Scotland because he 
had received news that his brother, Lord Seymour, was be- 
coming dangerous to him. This lord was now High Admiral 
of England ; a very handsome man, and a great favorite with 
the Court ladies — even with the young Princess Elizabeth, 
who romped with him a little more than young princesses in 
these times do with any one. He had married Catherine 
Parr, the late King's widow, who was now dead ; and, to 
strengthen his power, he secretly supplied the young King 
with money. He may even have engaged with some of his 
brother's enemies in a plot to cany the boy off. On these 
and other accusations, at any rate, he was confined in the 
Tower, impeached, and found guilty ; his own brother's name 
being — unnatural and sad to tell — the first signed to the 
warrant for his execution. He was executed on Tower Hill, 
and died denying his treason. One of his last proceedings in 
this world was to write two letters, one to the Princess Eliz- 
abeth, and one to the Princess Mary, which a servant of his 
took charge of, and concealed in his shoe. These letters are 
supposed to have urged them against his brother, and to re- 
venge his death. What they truly contained is not known ; 



308 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

but there is no doubt that he had, at one time, obtained great 
influence over the Princess Elizabeth. 

All this while, the Protestant religion was making progress. 
The images which the people had gradually come to worship 
were removed from the churches ; the people were informed 
that they need not confess themselves to priests unless they 
chose ; a common pra} T er-book was drawn up in the English 
language, which all could understand ; and man} 7 other im- 
provements were made ; still moderately. For Cranmer was 
a very moderate man, and even restrained the Protestant 
clergy from violently abusing the unreformed religion — as 
they very often did, and which was not a good example. 
But the people were at this time in great distress. The ra- 
pacious nobility who had come into possession of the Church 
lands, were very bad landlords. They enclosed great quan- 
tities of ground for the feeding of sheep, which was then more 
profitable than the growing of crops ; and this increased the 
general distress. So the people, who still understood little 
of what was going on about them, and still readily believed 
what the homeless monks told them — many of whom had 
been their good friends in their better days — took it into 
their heads that all this was owing to the reformed religion, 
and therefore rose in many parts of the country. 

The most powerful risings were in Devonshire and Norfolk. 
In Devonshire, the rebellion was so strong that ten thousand 
men united within a few days, and even laid siege to Exeter. 
But Lord Russell, coming to the assistance of the citizens 
who defended that town, defeated the rebels ; and, not only 
hanged the Mayor of one place, but hanged the vicar of 
another from his own church steeple. What with hanging 
and killing by the sword, four thousand of the rebels are 
supposed to have fallen in that one county. In Norfolk 
(where the. rising was more against the enclosure of open 
lands than against the reformed religion) , the popular leader 
was a man named Robert Ket, a tanner of Wymondham. 
The mob were, in the first instance, excited against the tan- 



EDWAED THE SIXTH. 309 

ncr b} r one John Flowerdew, a gentleman who owed him a 
grudge : but the tanner was more than a match for the gentle- 
man, since he soon got the people on his side, and established 
himself near Norwich with quite an arm}'. There was a large 
oak-tree in that place, on a spot called Household Hill, which 
Ket named the Tree of Reformation ; and under its green 
boughs, he and his men sat, in the midsummer weather, hold- 
ing courts of justice, and debating affairs of state. They 
were even impartial enough to allow some rather tiresome 
public speakers to get up into this Tree of Reformation, and 
point out their errors to them, in long discourses, while the}' 
laj T listening (not alwa} T s without some grumbling and growl- 
ing), in the shade below. At last, one sunny July day, a 
herald appeared below the tree, and proclaimed Ket and all 
his men traitors, unless from that moment the}' dispersed and 
went home : in which case they were to receive a pardon. 
But, Ket and his men made light of the herald and became 
stronger than ever, until the Earl of Warwick went after 
them with a sufficient force, and cut them all to pieces. A 
few were hanged, drawn, and quartered, as traitors, and their 
limbs were sent into various country places to be a terror to 
the people. Nine of them were hanged upon nine green 
branches of the Oak of Reformation ; and so, for the time, 
that tree may be said to have withered away. 

The Protector, though a haughty man, had compassion for 
the real distresses of the common people, and a sincere desire 
to help them. But he was too proud and too high in degree 
to hold even their favor steadily ; and many of the nobles 
always envied and hated him, because they were as proud 
and not as high as he. He was at this time building a great 
Palace in the Strand : to get the stone for which he blew up 
church steeples with gunpowder, and pulled down bishops' 
houses : thus making himself still more disliked. At length, 
his principal enemy, the Earl of Warwick — Dudle}' by name, 
and the son of that Dudley who had made himself so odious 
with Empson, in the reign of Henry the Seventh — joined 



310 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

with seven other members of the Council against him, forme* 
a separate Council ; and, becoming stronger in a few days, 
sent him to the Tower under twenty-nine articles of accusa- 
tion. After being sentenced by the Council to the forfeiture 
of all his offices and lands,. he was liberated and pardoned, 
on making a veiy humble submission. He was even taken 
back into the Council again, after having suffered this fall, 
and married his daughter, Lady Anne Seymour, to Warwick's 
eldest son. But such a reconciliation was little likely to last, 
and did not outlive a year. Warwick, having got himself 
made Duke of Northumberland, and having advanced the 
more important of his friends, then finished the history by 
causing the Duke of Somerset and his friend Lord Grey, and 
others, to be arrested for treason, in having conspired to seize 
and dethrone the King. They were also accused of having 
intended to seize the new Duke of Northumberland, with his 
friends Lord Northampton and Lord Pembroke ; to murder 
them if they found need ; and to raise the City to revolt. 
All this the fallen Protector positively denied ; except that 
he confessed to having spoken of the murder of those three 
noblemen, but having never designed it. He was acquitted 
of the charge of treason, and found guilty of the other charges ; 
so when the people — who remembered his having been their 
friend, now that he was disgraced and in danger, saw him come 
out from his trial with the axe turned from him — they thought 
he was altogether acquitted, and set up a loud shout of joy. 

But the Duke of Somerset was ordered to be beheaded on 
Tower Hill, at eight o'clock in the morning, and proclamations 
were issued bidding the citizens keep at home until after ten. 
They filled the streets, however, and crowded the place of 
execution as soon as it was light ; and, with sad faces and 
sad hearts, saw the once powerful Protector ascend the scaf- 
fold to lay his head upon the dreadful block. While he was 
yet saying his last words to them with manly courage, and 
telling them, in particular, how it comforted him, at that pass, 
to have assisted in reforming the national religion, a member 



EDWARD THE SIXTH. 311 

of the Council was seen riding up on horseback. Thej- again 
thought that the Duke was saved by his bringing a reprieve, 
and again shouted for joy. But the Duke himself told them 
they were mistaken, and laid down his head and had it struck 
off at a blow. 

Man}* of the bystanders rushed forward and steeped their 
handkerchiefs in his blood, as a mark of their affection. He 
had, indeed, been capable of many good acts, and one of them 
was discovered after he was no more. The Bishop of Dur- 
ham, a very good man, had been informed against to the 
Council, when the Duke was in power, as having answered a 
treacherous letter proposing a rebellion against the reformed 
religion. As the answer could not be found, he could not 
be declared guilty ; but it was now discovered, hidden by 
the Duke himself among some private papers, in his regard 
for that good man. The Bishop lost his office, and was 
deprived of his possessions. 

It is not very pleasant to know that while his uncle lay 
in prison under sentence of death, the young King was being 
vastly entertained b} T plays, and dances, and sham fights : 
but there is no doubt of it, for he kept a journal himself. 
It is pleasanter to know that not a single Roman Catholic 
was burnt in this reign for holding that religion ; though 
two wretched victims suffered for heres} r . One, a woman 
named Joan Bocher, for professing some opinions that even 
she could only explain in unintelligible jargon. The other, 
a Dutchman, named Von Paris, who practised as a surgeon 
in London. Edward was, to his credit, exceedingly unwill- 
ing to sign the warrant for the woman's execution : shed- 
ding tears before he did so, and telling Cranmer, who urgeu 
him to do it (though Cranmer really would have spared the 
woman at first, but for her own determined obstinacy) , that 
the guilt was not his, but that of the man who so strongly 
urged the dreadful act. We shall see, too soon, whether the 
time ever came when Cranmer is likely to have remembered 
this with sorrow and remorse. 



312 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Cranmer and Ridley (at first Bishop of Rochester, and 
afterwards Bishop of London) were the most powerful of the 
clerg} T of this reign. Others were imprisoned and deprived 
of their property, for still adhering to the unreformed religion ; 
the most important among whom were Gardiner Bishop of 
Winchester, Heath Bishop of Worcester, Day Bishop of 
Chichester, and Bonner that Bishop of London who was 
superseded by Ridley. The Princess Mary, who inherited 
her mother's gloomy temper, and hated the reformed religion 
as connected with her mother's wrongs and sorrows — she 
knew nothing else about it, always refusing to read a single 
book in which it was truly described — held by the unre- 
formed religion too, and was the only person in the kingdom 
for whom the old Mass was allowed to be performed ; nor 
would the young King have made that exception even in her 
favor, but for the strong persuasions of Cranmer and Riclle}^. 
He alwa}'S viewed it with horror ; and when he fell into a 
sickly condition, after having been very ill, first of the 
measles and then of the small-pox, he was greatly troubled in 
mind to think that if he died, and she, the next heir to the 
throne, succeeded, the Roman Catholic religion would be set 
up again. 

This uneasiness, the Duke of Northumberland was not slow 
to encourage : for, if the Princess Mary came to the throne, 
he, who had taken part with the Protestants, was sure to be 
disgraced. Now, the Duchess of Suffolk was descended from 
King Henry the Seventh ; and, if she resigned what little or 
no right she had, in favor of her daughter Lady Jane Grey, 
that would be the succession to promote the Duke's great- 
ness ; because Lord Guilford Dudley, one of his sons, 
was, at this very time, newly married to her. So, he worked 
upon the King's fears, and persuaded him to set aside both 
the Princess Mary and the Princess Elizabeth, and assert his 
right to appoint his successor. Accordingly the young King 
handed to the Crown lawyers a writing signed half a dozen 
times over by himself, appointing Lady Jane Grey to succeed 



EDWARD THE SIXTH. 313 

to the Crown, and requiring them to have his will made out 
according to law. They were much against it at first, and 
told the King so ; but the Duke of Northumberland — being 
so violent about it that the law}'ers even expected him to 
beat them, and hotly declaring that, stripped to his shirt, he 
would fight any man in such a quarrel — they j-ielded. 
Cranmer, also, at first hesitated ; pleading that he had sworn 
to maintain the succession of the Crown to the Princess 
Mary ; but, he was a weak man in his resolutions, and after- 
wards signed the document with the rest of the council. 

It was completed none too soon ; for Edward was now 
sinking in a rapid decline ; and, by way of making him bet- 
ter, they handed him over to a woman-doctor who pretended 
to /be able to cure it. He speedily got worse. On the sixth 
of July, in the year one thousand five hundred and fift3 T -three, 
he died, very peaceably and piously, praying God, with his 
last breath, to protect the reformed religion. 

This King died in the sixteenth year of his age, and in the 
seventh of his reign. It is difficult to judge what the char- 
acter of one so young might afterwards have become among 
so man} T bad, ambitious, quarrelling nobles. But, he was 
an amiable boy, of very good abilities, and had nothing 
coarse or cruel or brutal in his disposition — which in the son 
of such a father is rather surprising. 



314 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

ENGLAND UNDER MARY. 

The Duke of Northumberland was very anxious to keep 
the young King's death a secret, in order that he might get 
the two Princesses into his power. But, the Princess Mary, 
being informed of that event as she was on her way to 
London to see her sick brother, turned her horse's head, and 
rode away into Norfolk. The Earl of Arundel was her 
friend, and it was he who sent her warning of what had 
happened. 

As the secret could not be kept, the Duke of Northum- 
berland and the council sent for the Lord Mayor of London 
and some of the aldermen, and made a merit of telling it to 
them. Then, they made it known to the people, and set off 
to inform Lady Jane Grey that she was to be Queen. 

She was a pretty girl of only sixteen, and was amiable, 
learned, and clever. When the lords who came to her, fell 
on their knees before her, and told her what tidings they 
brought, she was so astonished that she fainted. On recov- 
ering, she expressed her sorrow for the young King's death, 
and said that she knew she was unfit to govern the kingdom ; 
but that if she must be Queen, she prayed God to direct her. 
She was then at Sion House, near Brentford ; and the lords 
took her down the river in state to the Tower, that she might 
remain there (as the custom was) until she was crowned. 
But the people were not at all favorable to Lady Jane, con- 
sidering that the right to be Queen was Mary's, and greatly 
disliking the Duke of Northumberland. The}- were not put 
into a better humor by the Duke's causing a vintner's ser- 



MARY. 315 

vant, one Gabriel Pot, to be taken up for expressing his dis- 
satisfaction among the crowd, and to have his ears nailed to 
the pilloiy, and cut off. Some powerful men among the 
nobilit}' declared on Mary's side. The}^ raised troops to sup- 
port her cause, had her proclaimed Queen at Norwich, and 
gathered around her at the castle of Framlingham, which 
belonged to the Duke of Norfolk. For, she was not con- 
sidered so safe as yet, but that it was best to keep her in a 
castle on the sea-coast, from whence she might be sent 
abroad, if neeessaiy. 

The Council would have despatched Lady Jane's father, 
the Duke of Suffolk, as the general of the army against this 
force ; but, as Lady Jane implored that her father might 
remain with her, and as he was known to be but a weak man, 
they told the Duke of Northumberland that he must take the 
command himself. He was not very ready to do so, as he 
mistrusted the Council much ; but there was no help for it, 
and he set forth with a heavy heart, observing to a lord who 
rode beside him through Shoreditch at the head of the troops, 
that although the people pressed in great numbers to look at 
them, they were terribly silent. 

And his fears for himself turned out to be well founded. 
While he was waiting at Cambridge for further help from the 
Council, the Council took it into their heads to turn their 
backs on Lady Jane's cause, and to take up the Princess 
Mary's. This was chiefly owing to the before-mentioned 
Earl of Arundel, who represented to the Lord Mayor and 
aldermen, in a second interview with those sagacious per- 
sons, that, as for himself, he did not perceive the Reformed 
religion to be in much danger — which Lord Pembroke backed 
by flourishing his sword as another kind of persuasion. The 
Lord Mayor and aldermen, thus enlightened, said there could 
be no doubt that the Princess Mary ought to be Queen. So, 
she was proclaimed at the Cross b}- St. Paul's, and barrels of 
wine were given to the people, and they got ver} T drunk, 
and danced round blazing bonfires — little thinking, poor 



316 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

wretches, what other bonfires would soon be blazing in Queen 
Mary's name. 

After a ten days' dream of royalty, Lad}^ Jane Grey re- 
signed the Crown with great willingness, saying that she had 
only accepted it in obedience to her father and mother ; and 
went gladly back to her pleasant house by the river, and her 
books. Mary then came on towards London ; and at Wan- 
stead in Essex, was joined by her half-sister, the Princess 
Elizabeth. They passed through the streets of London to 
the Tower, and there the new Queen met some eminent 
prisoners then confined in it, kissed them, and gave them 
their libert}^. Among these was that Gardiner, Bishop of 
Winchester, who had been imprisoned in the last reign for 
holding to the unreformecl religion. Him she soon made 
chancellor. 

The Duke of Northumberland had been taken prisoner, 
and, together with his son and five others, was quickly brought 
before the Council. He, not unnaturally, asked that Council, 
in his defence, whether it was treason to obe}^ orders that 
had been issued under the great seal ; and, if it were, whether 
they, who had obe} T ed them too, ought to be his judges? 
But they made light of these points ; and, being resolved to 
have him out of the way, soon sentenced him to death. He 
had risen into power upon the death of another man, and 
made but a poor show (as might be expected) when he him- 
self lay low. He entreated Gardiner to let him live, if it 
were only in a mouse's hole ; and, when he ascended the 
scaffold to be beheaded on Tower Hill, addressed the people 
in a miserable way, saying that he had been incited by others, 
and exhorting them to return to the unre formed religion, 
which he told them was his faith. There seems reason to 
suppose that he expected a pardon even then, in return for 
this confession ; but it matters little whether he did or not. 
His head was struck off. 

Mary was now crowned Queen. She was thirt} r -seven 
years of age, short and thin, wrinkled in the face, and very 



MARY. 317 

unhealthy. But she had a great liking for show and for bright 
colors, and all the ladies of her Court were magnificently 
dressed. She had a great liking too for old customs, without 
much sense in them ; and she was oiled in the oldest way, 
and blessed in the oldest way, and done all manner of things 
to in the oldest way, at her coronation. I hope they did 
her good. 

She soon began to show her desire to put down the Re- 
formed religion, and put up the unreformed one : though it 
was dangerous work as } 7 et, the people being something wiser 
than they used to be. They even cast a shower of stones — 
and among them a dagger — at one of the royal chaplains 
who attacked the Reformed religion in a public sermon. But 
the. Queen and her priests went steadily on. Ridle}', the 
powerful bishop of the last reign, was seized and sent to 
the Tower. Latimer, also celebrated among the clergy of the 
last reign, was likewise sent to the Tower, and Cranmer 
speedily followed. Latimer was an aged man ; and, as his 
guards took him through Smithfield, he looked round it, and 
said, " This is a place that hath long groaned for me." For 
he knew well, what kind of bonfires' would soon be burning. 
Nor was the knowledge confined to him. The prisons were 
fast filled with the chief Protestants, who were there left 
rotting in darkness, hunger, dirt, and separation from their 
friends ; mairv, who had time left them for escape, fled from 
the kingdom ; and the dullest of the people began, now, to 
see what was coming. 

It came on fast. A Parliament was got together ; not 
without strong suspicion of unfairness ; and they annulled 
the divorce, formerly pronounced by Cranmer between the 
Queen's mother and King Henry the Eighth, and unmade all 
the laws on the subject of religion that had been made in 
the last King Edward's reign. They began their proceedings, 
in violation of the law, by having the old mass said before 
them in Latin, and by turning out a bishop who would not 
kneel down. They also declared guilt}' of treason, Lady Jane 



318 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Grey for aspiring to the Crown ; her husband, for being her 
husband ; and Cranmer, for not believing in the mass afore- 
said. They then pra} T ed the Queen graciously to choose a 
husband for herself, as soon as might be. 

Now, the question who should be the Queen's husband had 
given rise to a great deal of discussion, and to several con- 
tending parties. Some said Cardinal Pole was the man — 
but the Queen was of opinion that he was not the man, he 
being too old and too much of a student. Others said that 
the gallant young Courtenay, whom the Queen had made 
Earl of Devonshire, was the man — and the Queen thought 
so too, for a while ; but she changed her mind. At last it 
appeared that Philip, Prince of Spain, was certainly the 
man — though certainty not the people's man ; for they de- 
tested the idea of such a marriage from the beginning to the 
end, and murmured that the Spaniard would establish in 
England, by the aid of foreign soldiers, the worst abuses of 
the Popish religion, and even the terrible Inquisition itself. 

These discontents gave rise to a conspiracy for marrying 
young Courtenay to the Princess Elizabeth, and setting them 
up, with popular tumults all over the kingdom, against the 
Queen. This was discovered in time by Gardiner ; but in 
Kent, the old bold county, the people rose in their old bold 
way. Sir Thomas Wyat, a man of great daring, was their 
leader. He raised his standard at Maidstone, marched on to 
Rochester, established himself in the old castle there, and 
prepared to hold out against the Duke of Norfolk, who came 
against him with a party of the Queen's Guards, and a body 
of five hundred London men. The London men, however, 
were all for Elizabeth, and not at all for Mary. They de- 
clared, under the castle walls, for Wyat ; the Duke retreated ; 
and Wyat came on to Deptford, at the head of fifteen thou- 
sand men. 

But these, in their turn, fell away. When he came to 
Southwark, there were only two thousand left. Not dismayed 
by finding the London citizens in arms, and the guns at the 



MARY. 319 

Tower ready to oppose his crossing the river there, "Wyat led 
them off to Kingston-upon-Thames, intending to cross the 
bridge that he knew to be in that place, and so to work his 
way round to Ludgate, one of the old gates of the City. He 
found the bridge broken down, but mended it, came across, 
and bravely fought his way up Fleet Street to Ludgate Hill. 
Finding the gate closed against him, he fought his way back 
again, sword in hand, to Temple Bar. Here, being over- 
powered, he surrendered himself, and three or four hundred 
of his men were taken, besides a hundred killed. W} 7 at, in 
a moment of weakness (and perhaps of torture) was after- 
wards made to accuse the Princess Elizabeth as his accomplice 
to some very small extent. But his manhood soon returned 
to him, and he refused to save his life Iry- making any more 
false* confessions. He was quartered and distributed in the 
usual brutal wa}', and from fifty to a hundred of his followers 
were hanged. The rest were led out, with halters round their 
necks, to be pardoned, and to make a parade of crying out, 
"God save Queen Mary ! " 

In the danger of this rebellion, the Queen showed herself 
to be a woman of courage and spirit. She disdained to re- 
treat to any place of safet}^ and went down to the Guildhall, 
sceptre in hand, and made a gallant speech to the Lord Mayor 
and citizens. But on the da} 7 after Wyat's defeat, she did 
the most cruel act even of her cruel reign, in signing the 
warrant for the execution of Lad} 7 Jane Gre} 7 . 

They tried to persuade Lady Jane to accept the unreformed 
religion ; but she steadily refused. On the morning when 
she was to die, she saw from her window the bleeding and 
headless body of her husband brought back in a cart from 
the scaffold on Tower Hill where he had laid down his life. 
But, as she had declined to see him before his execution, 
lest she should be overpowered and not make a good end, so, 
she even now showed a constancy and calmness that will 
never be forgotten. She came up to the scaffold with a firm 
step and a quiet face, and addressed the bystanders in a 



320 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

steady voice. They were not numerous ; for she was too 
young, too innocent and fair, to be murdered before the 
people on Tower Hill, as her husband had just been ; so, the 
place of her execution was within the Tower itself. She said 
that she had done an unlawful act in taking what was Queen 
Mary's right ; but that she had done so with no bad intent, 
and that she died a humble Christian. She begged the ex- 
ecutioner to despatch her quickly, and she asked him, " Will 
you take my head off before I la}- me down? " He answered, 
t; No, Madam," and then she was very quiet while they band- 
aged her eyes. Being blinded, and unable to see the block 
on which she was to lay her young head, she was seen to feel 
about for it with her hands, and was heard to say, confused, 
' ' what shall I do ! Where is it ? " Then they guided her 
to the right place, and the executioner struck off her head. 
You know, too well, now, what dreadful deeds the executioner 
did in England, through many many years, and how his axe 
descended on the hateful block through the necks of some of 
the bravest, wisest, and best in the land. But it never struck 
so cruel and so vile a blow as this. 

The father of Lady Jane soon followed, but was little 
pitied. Queen Mary's next object was to lay hold of Eliza- 
beth, and this was pursued with great eagerness. Five hun- 
dred men were sent to her retired house at Ashridge, hy 
Berkhampstead, with orders to bring her up, alive or dead. 
They got there at ten at night, when she was sick in bed. 
But, their leaders followed her lady into her bedchamber, 
whence she was brought out betimes next morning, and put 
into a litter to be conveyed to London. She was so weak and 
ill, that she was five days on the road ; still, she was so re- 
solved to be seen by the people that she had the curtains of 
the litter opened ; and so, very pale and sickly, passed through 
the streets. She wrote to her sister, saying she was innocent 
of anj 7 crime, and asking why she was made a prisoner ; but 
she got no answer, and was ordered to the Tower. They 
took her in by the Traitor's Gate, to which she objected, but 



MARY. 321 

in vain. One of the lords who conveyed her offered to cover 
her with his cloak, as it was raining, but she put it awa}>- from 
her, proudly and scornfully, and passed into the Tower, and 
sat down in a court}'ard on a stone. They besought her to 
come in out of the wet ; but she answered that it was better 
sitting there, than in a worse place. At length she went to 
her apartment, where she was kept a prisoner, though not so 
close a prisoner as at Woodstock, whither she was afterwards 
removed, and where she is said to have one day envied a 
milkmaid whom she heard singing in the sunshine as she went 
through the green fields. Gardiner, than whom there were 
not many worse men among the fierce and sullen priests, 
cared little to keep secret his stern desire for her death : being 
used to say that it was of little service to shake off the leaves, 
and lop the branches of the tree of heres} 7 , if its root, the 
hope of heretics, were left. He failed, however, in his be- 
nevolent design. Elizabeth was, at length, released ; and 
Hatfield House was assigned to her as a residence, under the 
care of one Sir Thomas Pope. 

It would seem that Philip, the Prince of Spain, was a 
main cause of this change in Elizabeth's fortunes. He was 
not an amiable man, being, on the contrary, proud, over- 
bearing, and gloomy ; but he and the Spanish lords who 
came over with him, assuredly did discountenance the idea of 
doing any violence to the Princess. It ma} T have been mere 
prudence, but we will hope it was manhood and honor. 
The Queen had been expecting her husband with great im 
patience, and at length he came, to her great joj r , though he 
never cared much for her. They were married by Gardiner, 
at Winchester, and there was more holiday-making among 
the people ; but they had their old distrust of this Spanish 
marriage, in which even the Parliament shared. Though the 
members of that Parliament were far from honest, and were 
strongly suspected to have been bought with Spanish money, 
they would pass no bill to enable the Queen to set aside the 
Princess Elizabeth and appoint her own successor. 

21 



322 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Although Gardiner failed in this object, as well as in the 
darker one of bringing the Princess to the scaffold, he went 
on at a great pace in the revival of the unre formed religion. 
A new Parliament was packed, in which there were no Prot- 
estants. Preparations were made to receive Cardinal Pole 
in England as the Pope's messenger, bringing his holy decla- 
ration that all the nobility who had acquired Church property, 
should keep it — which was done to enlist their selfish interest 
on the Pope's side. Then a great scene was enacted, which 
was the triumph of the Queen's plans. Cardinal Pole ar- 
rived in great splendor and dignity, and was received with 
great pomp. The Parliament joined in a petition expressive 
of their sorrow at the change in the national religion, and 
praying him to receive the country again into the Popish 
Church. With the Queen sitting on her throne, and the 
King on one side of her, and the Cardinal on the other, and 
the Parliament present, Gardiner read the petition aloud. 
The Cardinal then made a great speech, and was so obliging 
as to say that all was forgotten and forgiven, and that the 
kingdom was solemnly made Roman Catholic again. 

Everything was now ready for the lighting of the terrible 
bonfires. The Queen having declared to the Council, in writ- 
ing, that she would wish none of her subjects to be burnt 
without some of the Council being present, and that she 
would particularly wish there to be good sermons at all burn- 
ings, the Council knew pretty well what was to be done next. 
So, after the Cardinal had blessed all the bishops as a pref- 
ace to the burnings, the Chancellor Gardiner opened a High 
Court at Saint Mary Overy, on the Southwark side of Lon- 
don Bridge, for the trial of heretics. Here, two of the late 
Protestant clergymen, Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester, and 
Rogers, a Prebendary of St. Paul's, were brought to be tried. 
Hooper was tried first for being married, though a priest, 
and for not believing in the mass. He admitted both of 
these accusations, and said that the mass was a wicked im- 
position. Then they tried Rogers, who said the same. 



MARY. 323 

Next morning the two were brought up to be sentenced ; and 
then Rogers said that his poor wife, being a German woman 
and a stranger in the land, he hoped might be allowed to 
come to speak to him before he died. To this the inhuman 
Gardiner replied, that she was not his wife. " Yea, but she 
is, my lord," said Rogers, " and she hath been my wife these 
eighteen years." His request was still refused, and the}' 
were both sent to Newgate ; all those who stood in the streets 
to sell things, being ordered to put out their lights that the 
people might not see them. But, the people stood at their 
doors with candles in their hands, and prayed for them as 
they went by. Soon afterwards, Rogers was taken out of 
jail to be burnt in Smithfield ; and in the crowd as he went 
along, he saw his poor wife and his ten children, of whom the 
youngest was a little baby. And so he was burnt to death. 

The next da}-, Hooper, who was to be burnt at Gloucester, 
was brought out to take his last journey, and was made to 
wear a hood over his face that he might not be known by the 
people. But, they did know him for all that, down in his 
own part of the country ; and, when he came near Glouces- 
ter, the}' lined the road, making prayers and lamentations. 
His guards took him to a lodging, where he slept soundly 
all night. At nine o'clock next morning, he was brought 
forth leaning on a staff; for he had taken cold in prison, 
and was infirm. The iron stake, and the iron chain which 
was to bind him to it, were fixed up near a great elm-tree in 
a pleasant open place before the cathedral, where, on peace- 
ful Sundays, he had been accustomed to preach and to pray, 
when he was bishop of Gloucester. This tree, which had 
no leaves then, it being February, was filled with people ; 
and the priests of Gloucester College were looking compla- 
cently on from a window, and there was a great concourse of 
spectators in every spot from which a glimpse of the dread- 
ful sight could be beheld. When the old man kneeled clown 
on the small platform at the foot of the stake, and prayed 
aloud, the nearest people were observed to be so attentive to 



324 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

his prayers that they were ordered to stand farther back : 
for it did not suit the Romish Church to have those Protes- 
tant words heard. His pra}^ers concluded, he went up to 
the stake and was stripped to his shirt, and chained ready 
for the fire. One of his guards had such compassion on him 
that, to shorten his agonies, he tied some packets of 
gunpowder about him. Then they heaped up wood and 
straw and reeds, and set them all alight. But, unhap- 
pily, the wood was green and damp, and there was a wind 
blowing that blew what flame there was away. Thus, through 
three-quarters of an hour, the good old man was scorched 
and roasted and smoked, as the fire rose and sank ; and all 
that time they saw him, as he burned, moving his lips in 
prayer, and beating his breast with one hand, even after the 
other was burnt away and had fallen off. 

Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, were taken to Oxford to 
dispute with a commission of priests and doctors about the 
mass. They were shamefully treated ; and it is reported 
that the Oxford scholars hissed and howled and groaned, and 
misconducted themselves in an anything but a scholarly way. 
The prisoners were taken back to jail, and afterwards tried 
in St. Mary's Church. They were all found guilty. On the 
sixteenth of the month of October, Ridley and Latimer were 
brought out, to make another of the dreadful bonfires. 

The scene of the suffering of these two good Protestant 
men was in the City ditch, near Baliol College. On coming 
to the dreadful spot, they kissed the stakes, and then em- 
braced each other. And then a learned doctor got up into 
a pulpit which was placed there, and preached a sermon from 
the text, "Though I give my body to be burned, and have 
not charity, it profiteth me nothing." When you think of 
the charity of burning men alive, you may imagine that this 
learned doctor had a rather brazen face. Ridley would have 
answered his sermon when it came to an end, but was not 
allowed. When Latimer was stripped, it appeared that he 
had dressed himself under his other clothes, in a new shroud ; 



MARY. 325 

and, as he stood in it before all the people, it was noted of 
him, and long remembered, that, whereas he had been stoop- 
ing and feeble but a few minutes before, he now stood up- 
right and handsome, in the knowledge that he was dying for 
a just and a great cause. Ridley's brother-in-law was there 
with bags of gunpowder ; and when they were both chained 
up, he tied them round their bodies. Then, a light was 
thrown upon the pile to fire it. "Be of good comfort, Mas- 
ter Ridley," said Latimer, at that awful moment, " and play 
the man ! We shall this da} r light such a candle, by God's 
grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out." And 
then he was seen to make motions with his hands as if he 
were washing them in the flames, and to stroke his aged face 
wit^them, and was heard to cry, "Father of Heaven, re- 
ceive my soul ! " He died quickly, but the fire, after having 
burned the legs of Ridle}', sunk. There he lingered, chained 
to the iron post, and crying, "O! I cannot burn! O! for 
Christ's sake let the fire come unto me ! " And still, when 
his brother-in-law had heaped on more wood, he was heard 
through the blinding smoke, still dismally crying, "O! I 
cannot burn, I cannot burn ! " At last, the gunpowder 
caught fire and ended his miseries. 

Five days after this fearful scene, Gardiner went to his 
tremendous account before God, for the cruelties he had so 
much assisted in committing. 

Cranmer remained still alive and in prison. He was 
brought out again in February, for more examining and try- 
ing, by Bonner, Bishop of London : another man of blood, 
who had succeeded to Gardiner's work, even in his lifetime, 
when Gardiner was tired of it. Cranmer was now degraded 
as a priest, and left for death : but if the Queen hated any 
one on earth, she hated him, and it was resolved that he 
should be ruined and disgraced to the utmost. There is no 
doubt that the Queen and her husband personally urged on 
these deeds, because they wrote to the Council, urging them 
to be active in the kindling of the fearful fires. As Cranmer 



326 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

was known not to be a firm man, a plan was laid for sur- 
rounding him with artful people, and inducing him to recant 
to the unreformed religion. Deans and friars visited him, 
played at bowls with him, showed him various attentions, 
talked persuasively with him, gave him money for his prison 
comforts, and induced him to sign, I fear as many as six 
recantations. But when, after all, he was taken out to be 
burnt, he was nobly true to his better self, and made a glo- 
rious end. 

After prayers and a sermon, Dr. Cole, the preacher of the 
day (who had been one of the artful priests about Cranmer 
in prison) , required him to make a public confession of his 
faith before the people. This, Cole did, expecting that he 
would declare himself a Roman Catholic. "I will make a 
profession of my faith," said Cranmer, " and with a good 
will too." 

Then, he arose before them all, and took from the sleeve of 
his robe a written prayer and read it aloud. That done, he 
kneeled and said the Lord's Prayer, all the people joining ; 
and then he arose again and told them that he believed in the 
Bible, and that in what he had lately written, he had written 
what was not the truth, and that, because his right hand had 
signed those papers, he would burn his right hand first when 
he came to the fire. As for the Pope, he did refuse him and 
denounce him as the enenry of Heaven. Hereupon the pious 
Dr. Cole cried out to the guards to stop that heretic's mouth 
and take him awa}^. 

So they took him away, and chained him to the stake, 
where he hastily took off his own clothes to make ready for 
the flames. And he stood before the people with a bald head 
and a white and flowing beard. He was so firm now, when 
the worst was come, that he again declared against his re- 
cantation, and was so impressive and so undisma3 T ed, that a 
certain lord, who was one of the directors of the execution, 
called out to the men to make haste ! When the fire was 
lighted, Cranmer, true to his latest word, stretched out his 



MARY. 327 

right hand, and crying out, "This hand hath offended!" 
held it among the flames, until it blazed and burned away. 
His heart was found entire among his ashes, and he left at 
last a memorable name in English history. Cardinal Pole 
celebrated the day by saying his first mass, and next day he 
was made Archbishop of Canterbury in Cranmer's place. 

The Queen's husband, who was now mostly abroad in his 
own dominions, and generally made a coarse jest of her to 
his more familiar courtiers, was at war with France, and 
came over to seek the assistance of England. England was 
very unwilling to engage in a French war for his sake ; but it 
happened that the King of France, at this very time, aided 
a descent upon the English coast. Hence, war was declared, 
greatly to Philip's satisfaction ; and the Queen raised a sum 
of monej r with which to cany it on, by eveiy unjustifiable 
means in her power. It met with no profitable return, for 
the French Duke of Guise surprised Calais, and the English 
sustained a complete defeat. The losses they met with in 
France greatly mortified the national pride, and the Queen 
never recovered the blow. 

There was a bad fever raging in England at this time, and 
I am glad to write that the Queen took it, and the hour of 
her death came. " When I am dead and my body is opened," 
she said to those around her, ' ' ye shall find Calais written 
on my heart." I should have thought, if anything were 
written on it, they would have found the words — Jane Grey, 
Hooper, Rogers, Ridley, Latimer, Cranmer, and three 
hundred people burnt alive within four years of my 
wicked reign, including sixty women and forty little 
children. But it is enough that their deaths were written in 
Heaven. 

The Queen died on the seventeenth of November, fifteen 
hundred and fifty-eight, after reigning not quite five 3-ears and 
a half, and in the forty-fourth 3-ear of her age. Cardinal 
Pole died of the same fever next da} r . 

As Bloody Queen Mary, this woman has become famous, 



328 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

and as Bloody Queen Mary, she will ever be justly remem- 
bered with horror and detestation in Great Britain. Her 
memory has been held in such abhorrence that some writers 
have arisen in later years to take her part, and to show that 
she was, upon the whole, quite an amiable and cheerful 
sovereign ! "By their fruits ye shall know them," said Our 
Saviour. The stake and the fire were the fruits of this reign, 
and you will judge this Queen by nothing else. 



ELIZABETH. 329 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



ENGLAND UNDER ELIZABETH. 



There was great rejoicing all over the land when the Lords 
of the Council went down to Hatfield, to hail the Princess 
Elizabeth as the new Queen of England. Weary of the bar- 
barities of Mary's reign, the people looked with hope and 
gladness to the new Sovereign. The nation seemed to wake 
from a horrible dream ; and Heaven, so long hidden by the 
smoke of the fires that roasted men and women to death, ap- 
peared to brighten once more. 

Queen Elizabeth was five-and-twenty } T ears of age when 
she rode through the streets of London, from the Tower to 
Westminster Abbey, to be crowned. Her countenance was 
strongly marked, but on the whole, commanding and digni- 
fied ; her hair was red, and her nose something too long and 
sharp for a woman's. She was not the beautiful creature her 
courtiers made out ; but she was well enough, and no doubt 
looked all the better for coming after the dark and gloomy 
Mary. She was well educated, but a roundabout writer, and 
rather a hard swearer and coarse talker. She was clever, but 
cunning and deceitful, and inherited much of her father's 
violent temper. I mention this now, because she has been 
so over-praised by one party, and so over-abused by another, 
that it is hardly possible to understand the greater part of 
her reign without first understanding what kind of a woman 
she realty was. 

She began her reign with the great advantage of having a 
very wise and careful Minister, Sir William Cecil, whom 
she afterwards made Lord Burleigh. Altogether, the peo- 



330 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

pie had greater reason for rejoicing than they usually had, 
when there were processions in the streets ; and they were 
happy with some reason. All kinds of shows and images 
were set up ; Gog and Magog were hoisted to the top of 
Temple Bar ; and (which was more to the purpose) the Cor* 
poration dutifully presented the young Queen with the sum 
of a thousand marks in gold — so heavy a present that she 
was obliged to take it into her carriage with both hands. 
The coronation was a great success ; and, on the next day, 
one of the courtiers presented a petition to the new Queen, 
praying that as it was the custom to release some prisoners 
on such occasions, she would have the goodness to release 
the four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and 
also the Apostle Saint Paul, who had been for some time 
shut up in a strange language so that the people could not 
get at them. 

To this, the Queen replied that it would be better first to 
inquire of themselves whether they desired to be released or 
not ; and, as a means of finding out, a great public discussion 
— a sort of religious tournament — was appointed to take 
place between certain champions of the two religions, in 
Westminster Abbey. You may suppose that it was soon 
made pretty clear to common sense, that for people to benefit 
by what they repeat or read, it is rather necessary they should 
understand something about it. Accordingly, a Church Ser- 
vice in plain English was settled, and other laws and regula- 
tions were made, .completely establishing the great work of 
the Reformation. The Romish bishops and champions were 
not harshly dealt with, all things considered ; and the Queen's 
Ministers were both prudent and merciful. 

The one great trouble of this reign, and the unfortunate 
cause of the greater part of such turmoil and bloodshed as 
occurred in it, was Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. We 
will try to understand, in as few words as possible, who 
Mary was, what she was, and how she came to be a thorn in 
the lxjyal pillow of Elizabeth. 



ELIZABETH. 331 

She was the daughter of the Queen Regent of Scotland, 
Mary of Guise. She had been married, when a mere child, 
to the Dauphin, the son and heir of the King of France. 
The Pope, who pretended that no one could rightfully wear 
the crown of England without his gracious permission, was 
strongly opposed to Elizabeth, who had not asked for the 
said gracious permission. And as Mary Queen of Scots 
would have inherited the English crown in right of her birth, 
supposing the English Parliament not to have altered the 
succession, the Pope himself, and most of the discontented 
who were followers of his, maintained that Mary was the 
rightful Queen of England, and Elizabeth the wrongful 
Queen. Mary being so closely connected with France, and 
France being jealous of England, there was far greater dan- 
ger in this than there would have been if she had had no 
alliance with that great power. And when her young hus- 
band, on the death of his father, became Francis the Sec- 
ond, King of France, the matter grew ver} T serious. For, 
the young couple styled themselves King and Queen of Eng- 
land, and the Pope was disposed to help them by doing all 
the mischief he could. 

Now, the reformed religion, under the guidance of a stern 
and powerful preacher, named John Knox, and other such 
men, had been making fierce progress in Scotland. It was 
still a half savage county, where there was a great deal of 
murdering and rioting continually going on ; and the Reform- 
ers, instead of reforming those evils as they should have 
done, went to w r ork in the ferocious old Scottish spirit, lay- 
ing churches and chapels waste, pulling clown pictures and 
altars, and knocking about the Grey Friars, and the Black 
Friars, and the White Friars, and the friars of all sorts of 
colors, in all directions. This obdurate and harsh spirit of 
the Scottish Reformers (the Scotch have alwa} T s been rather 
a sullen and frowning people in religious matters) put up the 
blood of the Romish French court, and caused France to send 
troops over to Scotland, with the hope of setting the friars of 



332 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

all sorts of colors on their legs again ; of conquering that 
country first, and England afterwards ; and so crushing the 
Reformation all to pieces. The Scottish Reformers, who had 
formed a great league which they called The Congregation of 
the Lord, secretly represented to Elizabeth that, if the re- 
formed religion got the worst of it with them, it would be 
likely to get the worst of it in England too. And thus Eliza- 
beth, though she had a high notion of the rights of Kings and 
Queens to do anything they liked, sent an army to Scotland 
to support the Reformers, who were in arms against their 
sovereign. All these proceedings led to a treaty of peace 
at Edinburgh, under which the French consented to depart 
from the kingdom. By a separate treaty, Mary and her young 
husband engaged to renounce their assumed title of King 
and Queen of England. But this treaty they never ful- 
filled. 

It happened, soon after matters had got to this state, that 
the 3 T oung French King died, leaving Mary a young widow. 
She was then invited b}^ her Scottish subjects to return home 
and reign over them ; and as she was not now happy where 
she was, she, after a little time, complied. 

Elizabeth had been Queen three years, when Mary Queen 
of Scots embarked at Calais for her own rough quarrelling 
country. As she came out of the harbor, a vessel was lost 
before her eyes, and she said, "O! good God ! what an 
omen this is for such a voyage ! " She was very fond of 
France, and sat on the deck, looking back at it and weeping, 
until it was quite dark. When she went to bed, she directed 
to be called at daybreak, if the French coast were still visible, 
that she might behold it for the last time. As it proved to 
be a clear morning, this was done, and she again wept for 
the country she was leaving, and said many times, "Fare- 
well, France ! Farewell, France ! I shall never see thee 
again ! " All this was long remembered afterwards as sor- 
rowful and interesting in a fair 3 T oung princess of nineteen. 
Indeed, I am afraid it gradually came, together with her 



ELIZABETH. 333 

other distresses, to surround her with greater sympathy than 
she deserved. 

When she came to Scotland, and took up her abode at the 
palace of Holy rood in Edinburgh, she found herself among 
uncouth strangers and wild uncomfortable customs very dif- 
ferent from her experiences in the Court of France. The 
ver} T people who were disposed to love her, made her head 
ache when she was tired out by her vo} T age, with a serenade 
of discordant music — a fearful concert of bagpipes, I sup- 
pose — and brought her and her train home to her palace on 
miserable little Scotch horses that appeared to be half starved. 
Among the people who were not disposed to love her, she 
found the powerful leaders of the Reformed Church, who 
were bitter upon her amusements, however innocent, and 
denounced music and dancing as works of the devil. John 
Knox himself often lectured her, violently and angrih r , and 
did much to make her life unhapp}^. All these reasons con- 
firmed her old attachment to the Romish religion, and caused 
her, there is no doubt, most imprudently and dangerously 
both for herself and for England too, to give a solemn pledge 
to the heads of the Romish Church that if she ever succeeded 
to the English crown, she would set up that religion again. 
In reading her unhappy history, you must always remember 
this ; and also that during her whole life she was constantly 
put forward against the Queen, in some form or other, b}' 
the Romish party. 

That Elizabeth, on the other hand, was not inclined to like 
her, is pretty certain. Elizabeth was very vain and jealous, 
and had an extraordinary dislike to people being married. 
She treated Lady Catherine Grey, sister of the beheaded 
Lady Jane, with such shameful severity, for no other reason 
than her being secretly married, that she died and her hus- 
band was ruined ; so, when a second marriage for Mary 
began to be talked about, probably Elizabeth disliked her 
more. Not that Elizabeth wanted suitors of her own, for 
they started up from Spain, Austria, Sweden, and England. 



334 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Her English lover at this time, and one whom she much 
favored too, was Lord Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester — 
himself secretly married to Amy Robsart, the daughter of an 
English gentleman, whom he was strongly suspected of caus- 
ing to be murdered, down at his country seat, Cum nor Hall 
in Berkshire, that he might be free to marry the Queen. 
Upon this story, the great writer, Sir Walter Scott, has 
founded one of his best romances. But if Elizabeth knew 
how to lead her handsome favorite on, for her own vanity 
and pleasure, she knew how to stop him for her own pride ; 
and his love, and all the other proposals, came to nothing. 
The Queen always declared in good set speeches, that she 
would never be married at all, but live and die a Maiden 
Queen. It was a very pleasant and meritorious declaration 
I suppose ; but it has been puffed and trumpeted so much, 
that I am rather tired of it myself. 

Divers princes proposed to marry Mary, but the English 
court had reasons for being jealous of them all, and even 
proposed as a matter of policy that she should marry that 
very Earl of Leicester who had aspired to be the husband of 
Elizabeth. At last, Lord Darnley, son of the Earl of Len- 
nox, and himself descended from the Royal Family of Scot- 
land, went over with Elizabeth's consent to try his fortune at 
Holyrood. He was a tall simpleton ; and could dance and 
play the guitar ; but I know of nothing else he could do, 
unless it were to get drunk, and eat gluttonousl} 7 , and make 
a contemptible spectacle of himself in many mean and vain 
wsljs. However, he gained Mary's heart, not disdaining in 
the pursuit of his object to ally himself with one of her secre- 
taries, David Rizzio, who had great influence with her. He 
^oon married the Queen. This marriage does not say much 
for her, but what followed will presently say less. 

Mary's brother, the Earl of Murray, and head of the 
Protestant party in Scotland, had opposed this marriage, 
partly on religious grounds, and partly perhaps from per- 
sonal dislike of the very contemptible bridegroom. When it 



ELIZABETH. 335 

had taken place, through Ma^'s gaining over to it the more 
powerful of the lords about her, she banished Murray for his 
pains ; and, when he and some other nobles rose in arms to 
support the reformed religion, she herself, within a month of 
her wedding day, rode against them in armor with loaded 
pistols in her saddle. Driven out of Scotland, they presented 
themselves before Elizabeth — who called them traitors in 
public, and assisted them in private, according to her crafty 
nature. 

Mary had been married but a little while, when she began 
to hate her husband, who, in his turn, began to hate that 
David Rizzio, with whom he had leagued to gain her favor, 
and whom he now believed to be her lover. He hated 
Rizzio to that extent, that he made a compact with Lord 
Ruthven and three other lords to get rid of him by murder. 
This wicked agreement they made in solemn secrecy upon 
the first of March, fifteen hundred and sixty-six, and on the 
night of Saturday the ninth, the conspirators were brought by 
Darnley up a private staircase, dark and steep, into a range 
of rooms where the}^ knew that Mary was sitting at supper 
with her sister, Lady Arg} T le, and this doomed man. When 
the} r went into the room, Darule}' took the Queen round the 
waist, and Lord Ruthven, who had risen from a bed of sick- 
ness to do this murder, came in, gaunt and ghastly, leaning 
on two men. Rizzio ran behind the Queen for shelter and 
protection. " Let him come out of the room," said Ruthven. 
" He shall not leave the room," replied the Queen ; " I read 
his danger in j^our face, and it is my will that he remain 
here." They then set upon him, struggled with him, over- 
turned the table, dragged him out, and killed him with fifty- 
six stabs. When the Queen heard that he was dead, she 
said, " No more tears. I will think now of revenge ! " 

Within a day or two, she gained her husband over, and 
prevailed on the tall idiot to abandon the conspirators and 
fly with her to Dunbar. There, he issued a proclamation, 
audaciously and falsely denying that he had any knowledge 



336 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

of the late bloody business ; and there they were joined by 
the Earl Bothwell and some other nobles. With their 
help, they raised eight thousand men, returned to Edinburgh, 
and drove the assassins into England. Mary soon afterwards 
gave birth to a son — still thinking of revenge. 

That she should have had a greater scorn for her husband 
after his late cowardice and treachery than she had had 
before, was natural enough. There is little doubt that she 
now began to love Bothwell instead, and to plan with him 
means of getting rid of Darnley. Bothwell had such power 
over her that he induced her even to pardon the assassins of 
Eizzio. The arrangements for the christening of the 3 T oung 
Prince were entrusted to him, and he was one of the most 
important people at the ceremony, where the child was named 
James: Elizabeth being his godmother, though not present 
on the occasion. A week afterwards, Darnley, who had left 
Mary and gone to his father's house at Glasgow, being taken 
ill with the small-pox, she sent her own physician to attend 
him. But there is reason to apprehend that this was merely a 
show and a pretence, and that she knew what was doing, when 
Bothwell within another month proposed to one of the late 
conspirators against Eizzio, to murder Darnley, " for that 
it was the Queen's mind that he should be taken away." It 
is certain that on that very day she wrote to her ambassador 
in France, complaining of him, and yet went immediately to 
Glasgow, feigning to be very anxious about him, and to love 
him very much. If she wanted to get him in her power, she 
succeeded to her heart's content ; for she induced him to go 
back with her to Edinburgh, and to occupy, instead of the 
palace, a lone house outside the city called the Kirk of Field. 
Here, he lived for about a week. One Sunday night, she 
remained with him until ten o'clock, and then left him, to go 
to Holyrood to be present at an entertainment given in cele- 
bration of the marriage of one of her favorite servants. At 
two o'clock in the morning the city was shaken by a great 
explosion, and the Kirk of Field was blown to atoms. 



ELIZABETH. 337 

Darnley's body was found next da} T lying under a tree at 
some distance. How it came there, undisfigured and un- 
scorched by gunpowder, and how this crime came to be so 
clumsily and strangely committed, it is impossible to dis- 
cover. The deceitful character of Mary, and the deceitful 
character of Elizabeth, have rendered almost every part of 
their joint history uncertain and obscure. But, I fear that 
Mary was unquestionably a party to her husband's murder, 
and that this was the revenge she had threatened. The 
Scotch people universally believed it. Voices cried out in 
the streets of Edinburgh in the dead of the night, for justice 
on the murderess. Flacards were posted by unknown hands 
in the public places denouncing Bothwell as the murderer, 
and the Queen as his accomplice ; and, when he afterwards 
marfred her (though himself already married), previously 
making a show of taking her prisoner b}^ force, the indigna- 
tion of the people knew no bounds. The women particularly 
are described as having been quite frantic against the Queen, 
and to have hooted and cried after her in the streets with 
terrific vehemence. 

Such guilty unions seldom prosper. This husband and 
wife had lived together but a month, when they were sepa- 
rated for ever by the successes of a band of Scotch nobles who 
associated against them for the protection of the young Prince : 
whom Bothwell had vainly endeavored to lay hold of, and 
whom he would certainly have murdered, if the Earl of Mar, 
in whose hands the boy was, had not been firmly and honor- 
ably faithful to his trust. Before this angry power, Bothwell 
fled abroad, where he died, a prisoner and mad, nine miser- 
able years afterwards. Mary being found by the associated 
lords to deceive them at every turn, was sent a prisoner to 
Lochleven Castle ; which, as it stood in the midst of a lake, 
could only be approached by boat. Here, one Lord Lind- 
say, who was so much of a brute that the nobles would have 
done better if the}' had chosen a mere gentleman for their 
messenger, made her sign her abdication, and appoint Murray, 

22 



338 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Regent of Scotland. Here, too, Murray saw her in a sorrow- 
ing and humbled state. 

She had better have remained in the castle of Lochleven, 
dull prison as it was, with the rippling of the lake against it, 
and the moving shadows of the water on the room-walls ; but 
she could not rest there, and more than once tried to escape. 
The first time she had nearly succeeded, dressed in the clothes 
of her own washerwoman, but, putting up her hand to prevent 
one of the boatmen from lifting her veil, the men suspected 
her, seeing how white it was, and rowed her back again. A 
short time afterwards, her fascinating manners enlisted in her 
cause a boy in the Castle, called the little Douglas, who, 
while the famity were at supper, stole the kej's of the great 
gate, went softly out with the Queen, locked the gate on the 
outside, and rowed her away across the lake, sinking the keys 
as they went along. On the opposite shore she was met by 
another Douglas, and some few lords ; and, so accompanied, 
rode away on horseback to Hamilton, where the} T raised three 
thousand men. Here, she issued a proclamation declaring 
that the abdication she had signed in her prison was illegal, 
and requiring the Regent to yield to his lawful Queen. Being 
a steady soldier, and in no wa} T discomposed although he was 
without an army, Murray pretended to treat with her, until 
he had collected a force about half equal to her own, and then 
he gave her battle. In one quarter of an hour he cut down 
all her hopes. She had another weary ride on horseback of 
sixty long Scotch miles, and took shelter at Dundrennan 
Abbey, whence she fled for safety to Elizabeth's dominions. 

Mary Queen of Scots came to England — to her own ruin, 
the trouble of the kingdom, and the misery and death of many 
— in the year one thousand five hundred and sixty-eight. 
How she left it and the world, nineteen j-ears afterwards, we 
have now to see. 



elizabeth. 339 

Second Paet. 

When Mary Queen of Scots arrived in England, without 
money and even without any other clothes than those she 
wore, she wrote to Elizabeth, representing herself as an inno- 
cent and injured piece of Ro3'alt}', and entreating her assist- 
ance to oblige her Scottish subjects to take her back again 
and obey her. But, as her character was already known in 
England to be a veiy different one from what she made it out 
to be, she was told in answer that she must first clear herself. 
Made uneasy by this condition, Mary, rather than stay in 
England, would have gone to Spain, or to France, or would 
even have gone back to Scotland. But, as her doing either 
would have been likely to trouble England afresh, it was de- 
cided that she should be detained here. She first came to 
Carlisle, and, after that, was moved about from castle to 
castle, as was considered necessary ; but England she never 
left again. 

After trying very hard to get rid of the necessit}* of clear- 
ing herself, Maiy, advised by Lord Herries, her best friend 
in England, agreed to answer the charges against her, if the 
Scottish noblemen who made them would attend to maintain 
them before such English noblemen as Elizabeth might ap- 
point for that purpose. Accordingly, such an assembly, 
under the name of a conference, met, first at York, and after- 
wards at Hampton Court. In its presence Lord Lennox, 
Damn's father, openly charged Mary with the murder of 
his son ; and whatever Mary's friends may now say or write 
in her behalf, there is no doubt that, when her brother Murray 
produced against her a casket containing certain guilt}' letters 
and verses which he stated to have passed between her and 
Bothwell, she withdrew from the inquiry. Consequently, it 
is to be supposed that she was then considered guilty by those 
who had the best opportunities of judging of the truth, and 
that the feeling which afterwards arose in her behalf was a 
very generous but not a very reasonable one. 



340 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

However, the Duke of Norfolk, an honorable but rather 
weak nobleman, partly because Mary was captivating, partly 
because he was ambitious, parti}' because he was over-per- 
suaded b}' artful plotters against Elizabeth, conceived a strong 
idea that he would like to marry the Queen of Scots — though 
he was a little frightened, too, by the letters in the casket. 
This idea being secretly encouraged by some of the noblemen 
of Elizabeth's court, and even by the favorite Earl of Leicester 
(because it was objected to by other favorites who were his 
rivals), Mary expressed her approval of it, and the King of 
France and the King of Spain are supposed to have done the 
same. It was not so quietly planned, though, but that it 
came to Elizabeth's ears, wlfo warned the Duke " to be care- 
ful what sort of pillow he was going to lay his head upon." 
He made a humble reply at the time ; but turned suhYy soon 
afterwards, and, being considered dangerous, was sent to the 
Tower. 

Thus, from the moment of Mary's coming to England she 
began to be the centre of plots and miseries. 

A rise of the Catholics in the north was the next of these, 
and it was only checked by many executions and much blood- 
shed. It was followed by a great conspiracy of the Pope and 
some of the Catholic sovereigns of Europe to depose Elizabeth, 
place Mary on the throne, and restore the unreformed religion. 
It is almost impossible to doubt that Mary knew and approved 
of this ; and the Pope himself was so hot in the matter that 
he issued a bull, in which he openry called Elizabeth the 
"pretended Queen" of England, excommunicated her, and 
excommunicated all her subjects who should continue to obey 
her. A copy of this miserable paper got into London, and 
was found one morning publicty posted on the Bishop of Lon- 
don's gate. A great hue and cry being raised, another copy 
was found in the chamber of a student of Lincoln's Inn, who 
confessed, being put upon the rack, that he had received it 
from one John Felton, a rich gentleman who lived across 
the Thames, near Southwark. This John Felton, being put 



ELIZABETH. 341 

upon the rack too, confessed that he had posted the placard 
on the Bishop's gate. For this offence he was, within four 
days, taken to St. Paul's Churchyard, and there hanged and 
quartered. As to the Pope's bull, the people b} T the refor- 
mation having thrown off the Pope, did not care much, 3-ou 
may suppose, for the Pope's throwing off them. It was a 
mere dirty piece of paper, and not half so powerful as a street 
ballad. 

On the very da} 7 when Felton was brought to his trial, the 
poor Duke of Norfolk was released. It would have been well 
for him had he kept away from the Tower evermore, and 
from the snares that had taken him there. But, even while 
he was in that dismal place he corresponded with Mary, and 
as soon as he was out of it, he began to plot again. Being 
disc6vered in correspondence with the Pope, with a view to a 
rising in England which should force Elizabeth to consent to 
his marriage with Mary and to repeal the laws against the 
Catholics, he was recommitted to the Tower and brought to 
trial. He was found guilty bj T the unanimous verdict of the 
Lords who tried him, and was sentenced to the block. 

It is very difficult to make out, at this distance of time, and 
between opposite accounts, whether Elizabeth realty was a 
humane woman, or desired to appear so, or was fearful of 
shedding the blood of people of great name who were popular 
in the country. Twice she commanded and countermanded 
the execution of this Duke, and it did not take place until 
five months after his trial. The scaffold was erected on 
Tower Hill, and there he died like a brave man. He refused 
to have his e3'es bandaged, saying that he was not at all 
afraid of death ; and he admitted the justice of his sentence, 
and was much regretted by the people. 

Although Maiy had shrunk at the most important time 
from disproving her guilt, she was ver}' careful never to do 
anything that would admit it. All such proposals as were 
made to her 03* Elizabeth for her release, required that admis- 
sion in some form or other, and therefore came to nothing. 



342 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Moreover, both women being artful and treacherous, and 
neither ever trusting the other, it was not likely that they 
could ever make an agreement. So, the Parliament, aggra- 
vated by what the Pope had done, made new and strong laws 
against the spreading of the Catholic religion in England, 
and declared it treason in an} T one to say that the Queen and 
her successors were not the lawful sovereigns of England. 
It would have done more than this, but for Elizabeth's mod- 
eration. 

Since the Reformation, there had come to be three great 
sects of religious people — or people who called themselves 
so — in England; that is to say, those who belonged to the 
Reformed Church, those who belonged to the Unreformed 
Church, and those who were called the Puritans, because they 
said that they wanted to have eveiything very pure and plain 
in all the Church service. These last were for the most part 
an uncomfortable people, who thought it highly meritorious 
to dress in a hideous manner, talk through their noses, and 
oppose all harmless enjoyments. But they were powerful 
too, and ver} r much in earnest, and the} T were one and all the 
determined enemies of the Queen of Scots. The Protestant 
feeling in England was further strengthened by the tremen- 
dous cruelties to which Protestants were exposed in France 
and in the Netherlands. Scores of thousands of them were 
put to death in those countries with ever} T cruelty that can be 
imagined, and at last, in the autumn of the year one thou- 
sand five hundred and seventy-two, one of the greatest bar- 
barities ever committed in the world took place at Paris. 

It is called in history, The Massacre of Saint Barthol- 
omew, because it took place on Saint Bartholomew's Eve. 
The day fell on Saturday the twenty-third of August. On that 
day all the great leaders of the Protestants (who were there 
called Huguenots) were assembled together, for the purpose, 
as was represented to them, of doing honor to the marriage 
of their chief, the young King of Navarre, with the sister of 
Charles the Ninth: a miserable young King who then 



ELIZABETH. 343 

occupied the French throne. This dull creature was made to 
believe by his mother and other fierce Catholics about him 
that the Huguenots meant to take his life ; and he was per- 
suaded to give secret orders that, on the tolling of a great 
bell, they should be fallen upon by an overpowering force of 
armed men, and slaughtered wherever they could be found. 
When the appointed hour was close at hand, the stupid 
wretch, trembling from head to foot, was taken into a balcony 
by his mother to see the atrocious work begun. The moment 
the bell tolled, the murderers broke forth. During all that 
night and the two next days, they broke into the houses, 
fired the houses, shot and stabbed the Protestants, men, 
women, and children, and flung their bodies into the streets. 
The}^ were shot at in the streets as they passed along, and 
their blood ran down the gutters. Upwards of ten thousand 
Protestants were killed in Paris alone ; in all France four or 
five times that number. To return thanks to Heaven for 
these diabolical murders, the Pope and his train actually 
went in public procession at Rome, and as if this were not 
shame enough for them, the}^ had a medal struck to com- 
memorate the event. But, however comfortable the whole- 
sale murders were to these high authorities, the}' had not that 
soothing effect upon the doll-King. I am happ}^ to state that 
he never knew a moment's peace afterwards ; that he was 
continually ciying out that he saw the Huguenots covered 
with blood and wounds falling dead before him ; and that he 
died within a year, shrieking and yelling and raving to that 
degree, that if all the Popes who had ever lived had been 
rolled into one, they would not have afforded His guilty 
Majesty the slightest consolation. 

When the terrible news of the massacre arrived in Eng- 
land, it made a powerful impression indeed upon the people. 
If they began to run a little wild against the Catholics at 
about this time, this fearful reason for it, coming so soon 
after the days of bloody Queen Mary, must be remembered 
in their excuse. The Court was not quite so honest as the 



344 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

people — but perhaps it sometimes is not. It received the 
French ambassador, with all the lords and ladies dressed in 
deep mourning, and keeping a profound silence. Never- 
theless, a proposal of marriage which he had made to Eliza- 
beth only two days before the eve of Saint Bartholomew, on 
behalf of the Duke of Alengon, the French King's brother, 
a boy of seventeen, still went on ; while on the other hand, 
in her usual crafty way, the Queen secretly supplied the 
Huguenots with money and weapons. 

I must say that for a Queen who made all those fine speeches, 
of which I have confessed myself to be rather tired, about 
living and dying a Maiden Queen, Elizabeth was "going" 
to be married pretty often. Besides always having some 
English favorite or other whom she by turns encouraged 
and swore at and knocked about — for the maiden Queen 
was very free with her fists — she held this French Duke 
off and on through several years. When he at last came 
over to England, the marriage articles were actually drawn 
up, and it was settled that the wedding should take place 
in six weeks. The Queen was then so bent upon it, that 
she prosecuted a poor Puritan named Stubbs, and a poor 
bookseller named Page, for writing and publishing a pam- 
phlet against it. Their right hands were chopped off for this 
crime ; and poor Stubbs — more loyal than I should have 
been myself under the circumstances — immediately pulled 
off his hat with his left hand, and cried, "God save the 
Queen ! " Stubbs was cruelly treated ; for the marriage never 
took place after all, though the Queen pledged herself to the 
Duke with a ring from her own finger. He went away, no 
better than he came, when the courtship had lasted some ten 
years altogether ; and he died a couple of years afterwards, 
mourned by Elizabeth, who appears to have been really fond 
of him. It is not much to her credit, for he was a bad 
enough member of a bad family. 

To return to the Catholics. There arose two orders of 
priests, who were very busy in England, and who were much 



ELIZABETH. 345 

dreaded. These were the Jesuits (who were ever} T where in 
all sorts of disguises), and the Seminary Priests. The 
people had a great horror of the first, because they were 
known to have taught that murder was lawful if it were done 
with an object of which they approved ; and they had a great 
horror of the second, because they came to teach the old 
religion, and to be the successors of " Queen Mary's priests," 
as those 3'et lingering in England were called, when they 
should die out. The severest laws were made against 
them, and were most unmercifully executed. Those who 
sheltered them in their houses often suffered heavily for what 
was an act of humanity ; and the rack, that cruel torture 
which tore men's limbs asunder, was constantly kept going. 
What these unhappy men confessed, or what was ever con- 
fessed by an} r one under that agon} x , must alwa} r s be received 
with great doubt, as it is certain that people have frequently 
owned to the most absurd and impossible crimes to escape 
such dreadful suffering. But I cannot doubt it to have been 
proved b} T papers, that there were many plots, both among 
the Jesuits, and with France, and with Scotland, and with 
Spain, for the destruction of Queen Elizabeth, for the 
placing of Mary on the throne, and for the revival of the old 
religion. 

If the English people were too ready to believe in plots, 
there were, as I have said, good reasons for it. When the 
massacre of Saint Bartholomew was j r et fresh in their recol- 
lection, a great Protestant Dutch hero, the Prince op 
Orange, was shot by an assassin, who confessed that he 
had been kept and trained for the purpose in a college of 
Jesuits. The Dutch, in this surprise and distress, offered to 
make Elizabeth their sovereign, but she declined the honor, 
and sent them a small army instead, under the command of 
the Earl of Leicester, who, although a capital court favorite, 
was not much of a general. He did so little in Holland, that 
his campaign there would probably have been forgotten, but 
for its occasioning the death of one of the best writers, the 



346 A CHILD'S HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. 

best knights, and the best gentlemen of that or any age. This 
was Sir Philip Sidney, who was wounded by a musket ball 
in the thigh as he mounted a fresh horse, after having had 
his own killed under him. He had to ride back wounded, 
a long distance, and was very faint with fatigue and loss of 
blood, when some water, for which he had eagerly asked, 
was handed to him. But he was so good and gentle even 
then, that seeing a poor badly wounded common soldier 
lying on the ground, looking at the water with longing eyes, 
he said, " Thy necessity is greater than mine," and gave it 
up to him. This touching action of a noble heart is perhaps 
as well known as any incident in history — is as famous far 
and wide as the blood-stained Tower of London, with its 
axe, and block, and murders out of number. So delightful 
is an act of true humanity, and so glad are mankind to 
remember it. 

At home, intelligence of plots began to thicken every day. 
I suppose the people never did live under such continual 
terrors as those by which they were possessed now, of Catho- 
lic risings, and burnings, and poisonings, and I don't know 
what. Still, we must always remember that they lived near 
and close to awful realities of that kind, and that with their 
experience it was not difficult to believe in any enormity. 
The government had the same fear, and did not take the 
best means of discovering the truth — for, besides torturing 
the suspected, it employed paid spies, who will alwaj's lie for 
their own profit. It even made some of the conspiracies it 
brought to light, by sending false letters to disaffected peo- 
ple, inviting them to join in pretended plots, which they too 
readily did. 

But, one great real plot was at length discovered, and it 
ended the career of Mary, Queen of Scots. A seminary 
priest named Ballard, and a Spanish soldier named Savage, 
set on and encouraged by certain French priests, imparted 
a design to one Antony Babington — a gentleman of fortune 
in Derbyshire, who had been for some time a secret agent of 



ELIZABETH. 347 

Mary's — for murdering the Queen. Babington then confided 
the scheme to some other Catholic gentlemen who were his 
friends, and they joined in it heartily. They were vain 
weak-headed young men, ridiculously confident, and prepos- 
terously proud of their plan ; for they got a gimcrack paint- 
ing made, of the six choice spirits who were to murder 
Elizabeth, with Babington in an attitude for the centre figure. 
Two of their number, however, one of whom was a priest, 
kept Elizabeth's wisest minister, Sir Francis Walsingham, 
acquainted with the whole project from the first. The con- 
spirators were completely deceived to the final point, when 
Babington gave Savage, because he was shabby, a ring from 
his finger, and some money from his purse, wherewith to buy 
himself new clothes in which to kill the Queen. Walsing- 
ham, having then full evidence against the whole band, and 
two letters of Mary's besides, resolved to seize them. Sus- 
pecting something wrong, they stole out of the city, one by 
one, and hid themselves in St. John's Wood, and other 
places which really were hiding places then ; but they were 
all taken, and all executed. When they were seized, a gen- 
tleman was sent from Court to inform Mary of the fact, 
and of her being involved in the discovery. Her friends 
have complained that she was kept in very hard and severe 
custocly. It does not appear very likely, for she was going 
out a hunting that very morning. 

Queen Elizabeth had been warned long ago, by one in 
France who had good information of what was secretly doing, 
that in holding Mar}^ alive, she held "the wolf who would 
devour her." The Bishop of London had, more lately, given 
the Queen's favorite minister the advice in writing, ' ' forth- 
with to cut off the Scottish Queen's head." The question 
now was, what to do with her ? The Earl of Leicester wrote a 
little note home from Holland, recommending that she should 
be quietly poisoned ; that noble favorite having accustomed his 
mind, it is possible, to remedies of that nature. His black 
advice, however, was disregarded, and she was brought to 



348 A CHILD'S HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. 

trial at Fotheringay Castle in Northamptonshire, before a 
tribunal of forty, composed of both religions. There, and 
in the Star Chamber at Westminster, the trial lasted a fort- 
night. She defended herself with great ability, but could 
only deny the confessions that had been made by Babington 
and others ; could only call her own letters, produced against 
her by her own secretaries, forgeries ; and, in short, could 
only deny everything. She was found guilty, and declared 
to have incurred the penalty of death. The Parliament met, 
approved the sentence, and pra} r ed the Queen to have it exe- 
cuted. The Queen replied that she requested them to con- 
sider whether no means could be found of saving Mary's life 
without endangering her own. The Parliament rejoined, No ; 
and the citizens illuminated their houses and lighted bonfires, 
in token of their joy that all these plots and troubles were to 
be ended by the death of the Queen of Scots. 

She, feeling sure that her time was now come, wrote a let- 
ter to the Queen of England, making three entreaties ; first, 
that she might be buried in France ; secondly, that she might 
not be executed in secret, but before her servants and some 
others ; thirdly, that after her death, her servants should not 
be molested, but should be suffered to go home with the leg- 
acies she left them. It was an affecting letter, and Elizabeth 
shed tears over it, but sent no answer. Then came a special 
ambassador from France, and another from Scotland, to in- 
tercede for Mary's life ; and then the nation began to clamor, 
more and more, for her death. 

What the real feelings or intentions of Elizabeth were, can 
never be known now ; but I strongly suspect her of only 
wishing one thing more than Mary's death, and that was to 
keep free of the blame of it. On the first of February, one 
thousand five hundred and eighty-seven, Lord Burleigh hav- 
ing drawn out the warrant for the execution, the Queen sent 
to the secretary Davison to bring it to her, that she might 
sign it : which she did. Next day, when Davison told her 
it was sealed, she angrily asked him why such haste was 



ELIZABETH. 349 

necessary ! Next day but one, she joked about it, and swore a 
little. Again, next day but one, she seemed to complain 
that it was not yet done, but still she would not be plain with 
those about her. So, on the seventh, the Earls of Kent and 
Shrewsbury, with the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, came with 
the warrant to Fotheringay, to tell the Queen of Scots to pre- 
pare for death. 

When those messengers of ill omen were gone, Mary made 
a frugal supper, drank to her servants, read over her will, 
went to bed, slept for some hours, and then arose and passed 
the remainder of the night saying pra} T ers. In the morning 
she dressed herself in her best clothes : and, at eight o'clock, 
when the sheriff came for her to her chapel, took leave of her 
servants who were there assembled praying with her, and 
went down-stairs, carrying a Bible in one hand and a cru- 
cifix in the other. Two of her women and four of her men 
were allowed to be present in the hall ; where a low scaffold, 
only two feet from the ground, was erected and covered with 
black : and where the executioner from the Tower, and his 
assistant, stood, dressed in black velvet. The hall was full 
of people. While the sentence was being read she sat upon 
a stool ; and, when it was finished, she again denied her guilt, 
as she had done before. The Earl of Kent and the Dean of 
Peterborough, in their Protestant zeal, made some very un- 
necessary speeches to her : to which she replied that she died 
in the Catholic religion, and they need not trouble themselves 
about that matter. When her head and neck were uncovered 
by the executioners, she said that she had not been used to 
be undressed by such hands, or before so much company. Fi- 
nally, one of her women fastened a cloth over her face, and 
she laid her neck upon the block, and repeated more than 
once in Latin, " Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my 
spirit ! " Some say her head was struck off in two blows, 
some say in three. However that be, when it was held up, 
streaming with blood, the real hair beneath the false hair she 
had long worn was seen to be as gray as that of a woman of 



350 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

seventy, though she was at that time only in her forty-sixth 
year. All her beauty was gone. 

But she was beautiful enough to her little dog, who cow- 
ered under her dress, frightened, when she went upon the 
scaffold, and who lay down beside her headless body when 
all her earthly sorrows were over. 



Third Part. 

On its being formally made known to Elizabeth that the 
sentence had been executed on the Queen of Scots, she 
showed the utmost grief and rage, drove her favorites from 
her with violent indignation, and sent Davison to the Tower ; 
from which place he was only released in the end by pa}ing 
an immense fine which completely ruined him. Elizabeth not 
only overacted her part in making these pretences, but most 
basely reduced to poverty one of her faithful servants for no 
other fault than obeying her commands. 

James, King of Scotland, Mary's son, made a show likewise 
of being very angry on the occasion ; but he was a pensioner 
of England to the amount of five thousand pounds a }~ear, and 
he had known very little of his mother, and he possibly re- 
garded her as the murderer of his father, and he soon took 
it quietly. 

Philip, King of Spain, however, threatened to do greater 
things than ever had been done yet, to set up the Catholic 
religion and punish Protestant England. Elizabeth, hearing 
that he and the Prince of Parma were making great prepara- 
tions for this purpose, in order to be beforehand with them 
sent out Admiral Drake (a famous navigator, who had 
sailed about the world, and had already brought great plun- 
der from Spain) to the port of Cadiz, where he burnt a 
hundred vessels full of stores. This great loss obliged the 
Spaniards to put off the invasion for a year ; but it was none 



ELIZABETH. 351 

the less formidable for that, amounting to one hundred and 
thirty ships, nineteen thousand soldiers, eight thousand sail- 
ors, two thousand slaves, and between two and three thou- 
sand great guns. England was not idle in making ready to 
resist this great force. All the men between sixteen years 
old and sixty, were trained and drilled ; the national fleet of 
ships (in number only thirty-four at first) was enlarged by 
public contributions and by private ships, fitted out by noble- 
men ; the city of London, of its own accord, furnished double 
the number of ships and men that it was required to provide ; 
and, if ever the national spirit was up in England, it was up 
all through the country to resist the Spaniards. Some of the 
Queen's advisers were for seizing the principal English Cath- 
olics, and putting them to death ; but the Queen — who to 
her honor, used to say, that she would never believe any ill of 
her subjects, which a parent would not believe of her own 
children — rejected the advice, and only confined a few of 
those who were the most suspected, in the fens of Lincolnshire. 
The great body of Catholics deserved this confidence ; for 
they behaved most loyally, nobly, and bravery. 

So, with all England firing up like' one strong angry man, 
and with both sides of the Thames fortified, and with the 
soldiers under arms, and with the sailors in their ships, the 
country waited for the coming of the proud Spanish fleet, 
which was called The Invincible Armada. The Queen her- 
self, riding in armor on a white horse, and the Earl of Essex, 
and the Earl of Leicester holding her bridle rein, made a 
brave speech to the troops at Tilbury Fort opposite Graves- 
end, which was received with such enthusiasm as is seldom 
known. Then came the Spanish Armada into the English 
Channel, sailing along in the form of a half moon, of such 
great size that it was seven miles broad. But the English 
were quickly upon it, and woe then to all the Spanish ships 
that dropped a little out of the half moon, for the English 
took them instantly ! And it soon appeared that the great 
Armada was anything but invincible, for on a summer night, 



352 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

bold Drake sent eight blazing fire-ships right into the midst 
of it. In terrible consternation the Spaniards tried to get 
out to sea, and so became dispersed ; the English pursued 
them at a great advantage ; a storm came on, and drove the 
Spaniards among rocks and shoals ; and the swift end of the 
Invincible fleet was, that it lost thirty great ships and ten 
thousand men, and, defeated and disgraced, sailed home 
again. Being afraid to go b} T the English Channel, it sailed 
all round Scotland and Ireland ; some of the ships getting 
cast away on the latter coast in bad weather, the Irish, who 
were a kind of savages, plundered those vessels and killed 
their crews. So ended this great attempt to invade and con- 
quer England. And I think it will be a long time before any 
other invincible fleet coming to England with the same object, 
will fare much better than the Spanish Armada. 

Though the Spanish king had had this bitter taste of Eng- 
lish bravery, he was so little the wiser for it, as still to enter- 
tain his old designs, and even to conceive the absurd idea of 
placing his daughter on the English throne. But the Earl of 
Essex, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Thomas Howard, and 
some other distinguished leaders, put to sea from Plymouth, 
entered the port of Cadiz once more, obtained a complete 
victory over the shipping assembled there, and got possession 
of the town. In obedience to the Queen's express instruc- 
tions, they behaved with great humanity ; and the principal 
loss of the Spaniards was a vast sum of money which they 
had to pay for ransom. This was one of many gallant 
achievements on the sea, effected in this reign. Sir Walter 
Raleigh himself, after manning a maid of honor and giving 
offence to the Maiden Queen thereby, had already sailed to 
South America in search of gold. 

The Earl of Leicester was now dead, and so was Sir Thom- 
as Walsingham, whom Lord Burleigh was soon to follow. 
The principal favorite was the Earl of Essex, a spirited and 
handsome man, a favorite with the people too as well as with 
the Queen, and possessed of many admirable qualities. It 



ELIZABETH. 353 

was much debated at Court whether there should be peace 
with Spain or no, and he was very urgent for war. He also 
tried hard to have his own way in the appointment of a dep- 
uty to govern in Ireland. One da}*, while this question was in 
dispute, he hastily took offence, and turned his back upon the 
Queen ; as a gentle reminder of which impropriety, the Queen 
gave him a tremendous box on the ear, and told him to go to 
the devil. He went home instead, and did not reappear at 
Court for half a year or so when he and the Queen were 
reconciled, though never (as some suppose) thoroughly. 

From this time the fate of the Earl of Essex and that of 
the Queen seemed to be blended together. The Irish were 
still perpetually quarrelling and fighting among themselves, 
and he went over to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant, to the great 
joy of his enemies (Sir Walter Raleigh among the rest) , who 
were glad to have so dangerous a rival far off. Not being by 
any means successful there, and knowing that his enemies 
would take advantage of that circumstance to injure him 
with the Queen, he came home again, though against her or- 
ders. The Queen being taken by surprise when he appeared 
before her, gave him her hand to kiss, and he was over- 
joj-ed — - though it was not a very lovely hand by this time — 
but in the course of the same da}* she ordered him to confine 
himself to his room, and two or three days afterwards had him 
taken into custody. With the same sort of caprice — and as 
capricious an old woman she now was, as ever wore a crown 
or a head either — she sent him broth from her own table on 
his falling ill from anxiety, and cried about him. 

He was a man who could find comfort and occupation in his 
books, and he did so for a time ; not the least happy time, I 
dare sa}*, of his life. But it happened unfortunately for him 
that he held a monopoly in sweet wines : which means that 
nobod}* could sell them without purchasing his permission. 
This right, which was only for a term, expiring, he applied to 
have it renewed. The Queen refused, with the rather strong 
observation — but she did make strong observations — that an 

23 



354 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

unruly beast must be stinted in his food. Upon this, the 
angry Earl, who had been already deprived of many offices, 
thought himself in danger of complete ruin, and turned against 
the Queen, whom he called a vain old woman who had grown 
as crooked in her mind as she had in her figure. These 
uncomplimentary expressions the ladies of the Court immedi- 
ately snapped up and carried to the Queen, whom they did not 
put in a better temper, you may believe. The same Court 
ladies, when they had beautiful dark hair of their own, used 
to wear false red hair, to be like the Queen. So they were 
not very high-spirited ladies, however high in rank. 

The worst object of the Earl of Essex, and some friends of 
his who used to meet at Lord Southampton's house, was to 
obtain possession of the Queen, and oblige her by force to 
dismiss her ministers and change her favorites. On Satur- 
da}^ the seventh of February, one thousand six hundred and 
one, the council suspecting this, summoned the Earl to come 
before them. He, pretending to be ill, declined ; it was then 
settled among his friends, that as the next day would be Sun- 
day, when many of the citizens usually assembled at the Cross 
by St. Paul's Cathedral, he should make one bold effort to 
induce them to rise and follow him to the Palace. 

So on the Sunday morning, he and a small body of adhe- 
rents started out of his house — Essex House by the Strand, 
with steps to the river — having first shut up in it, as prison- 
ers, some members of the council who came to examine him 
— and hurried into the City with the Earl at their head, cry- 
ing out, ' ' For the Queen ! For the Queen ! A plot is laid 
for my life ! " No one heeded them, however, and when the}' 
came to St. Paul's there were no citizens there. In the mean- 
time the prisoners at Essex House had been released by one 
of the Earl's own friends ; he had been promptly proclaimed a 
traitor in the City itself ; and the streets were barricaded with 
carts and guarded by soldiers. The Earl got back to his 
house by water, with difficulty, and after an attempt to defend 
his house against the troops and cannon bj- which it was soon 



ELIZABETH. 355 

surrounded, gave himself up that night. He was brought to 
trial on the nineteenth, and found guilty ; on the twenty- 
fifth, he was executed on Tower Hill, where he died, at 
thirty-four years old, both courageously and penitently. His 
step-father suffered with him. His enemy, Sir Walter Ra- 
leigh, stood near the scaffold all the time — but not so near it 
as we shall see him stand, before we finish his history. 

In this case, as in the cases of the Duke of Norfolk and 
Mary Queen of Scots, the Queen had commanded, and coun- 
termanded, and again commanded, the execution. It is prob- 
able that the death of her } T oung and gallant favorite in the 
prime of his good qualities, was never off her mind afterwards, 
but she held out, the same vain obstinate and capricious 
woman, for another year. Then she danced before her Court 
on a state occasion — and cut, I should think, a mighty ridicu- 
lous figure, doing so in an immense ruff, stomacher and wig, 
at seventy years old. For another year still, she held out, 
but, without any more dancing, and as a moody sorrowful bro- 
ken creature. At last, on the tenth of March, one thousand 
six hundred and three, having been ill of a very bad cold, and 
made worse by the death of the Countess of Nottingham, 
who was her intimate friend, she fell into a stupor and was 
supposed to be dead. She recovered her consciousness, how- 
ever, and then nothing would induce her to go to bed ; for 
she said that she knew that if she did she should never get 
up again. There she lay for ten clays, on cushions on the 
floor, without any food, until the Lord Admiral got her into 
bed at last, partly b}- persuasions and partly by main force. 
When the}' asked her who should succeed her, she replied that 
her seat had been the seat of Kings and that she would have 
for her successor, "No rascal's son, but a King's." Upon 
this, the lords present stared at one another, and took the lib- 
erty of asking whom she meant ; to which she replied, "Whom 
should I mean, but our cousin of Scotland ! " This was on 
the twenty-third of March. They asked her once again that 
day, after she was speechless, whether she was still in the 



356 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

same mind? She struggled up in bed, and joined her 
hands over her head in the form of a crown, as the only reply- 
she could make. At three o'clock next morning, she very 
quietly died, in the forty-fifth year of her reign. 

That reign had been a glorious one, and is made for ever 
memorable by the distinguished men who flourished in it. 
Apart from the great vo}'agers, statesmen, and scholars, 
whom it produced, the names of Bacon, Spenser, and 
Shakespeare, will always be remembered with pride and 
veneration by the civilized world, and will always impart 
(though with no great reason, perhaps) some portion of their 
lustre to the name of Elizabeth herself. It was a great reign 
for discovery, for commerce, and for English enterprise and 
spirit in general. It was a great reign for the Protestant re- 
ligion and for the Reformation which made England free. 
The Queen was very popular, and in her progresses, or jour- 
neys about her dominions, was everywhere received with the 
liveliest joy. I think the truth is, that she was not half so 
good as she has been made out, and not half so bad as she 
has been made out. She had her fine qualities, but she was 
coarse, capricious, and treacherous, and had all the faults of 
an excessively vain } r oung woman long after she was an old 
one. On the whole, she had a great deal too much of her 
father in her, to please me. 

Man}' improvements and luxuries were introduced in the 
course of these five-and-forty years in the general manner of 
living ; but cock-fighting, bull-baiting, and bear-baiting, were 
still the national amusements ; and a coach was so rarely 
seen, and was such an ugly and cumbersome affair when it 
was seen, that even the Queen herself, on many high occa- 
sions, rode on horseback on a pillion behind the Lord Chan- 
cellor. 



JAMES THE FIKST. 357 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE FIRST. 



u 



Our cousin of Scotland" was ugly, awkward, and shuf- 
fling both in mind and person. His tongue was much too 
large for his mouth, his legs were much too weak for his 
body, and his dull goggle-eyes stared and rolled like an 
idiot's. He was cunning, covetous, wasteful, idle, drunken, 
greedy, dirty, cowardly, a great swearer, and the most con- 
ceited man on earth. His figure — what is commonly called 
rickety from his birth — presented a most ridiculous appear- 
ance, dressed in thick padded clothes, as a safeguard against 
being stabbed (of which he lived in continual fear), of a 
grass-green color from head to foot, with a hunting-horn 
dangling at his side instead of a sword, and his hat and 
feather sticking over one e} r e, or hanging on the back of his 
head, as he happened to toss it on. He used to loll on the 
necks of his favorite courtiers, and slobber their faces, and 
kiss and pinch their cheeks ; and the greatest favorite he ever 
had, used to sign himself in his letters to his ro} r al master, 
His Majesty's "dog and slave," and used to address his 
majesty as " his Sowship." His majesty was the worst rider 
ever seen, and thought himself the best. He was one of the 
most impertinent talkers (in the broadest Scotch) ever heard, 
and boasted of being unanswerable in all manner of argument. 
He wrote some of the most wearisome treatises ever read — 
among others a book upon witchcraft, in which he was a de- 
vout believer — and thought himself a prodigy of authorship. 
He thought, and wrote, and said, that a king had a right to 
make and unmake what laws he pleased, and ought to be 



358 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

accountable to nobody on earth. This is the plain true 
character of the personage whom the greatest men about the 
court praised and nattered to that degree, that I doubt if 
there be anything much more shameful in the annals of hu- 
man nature. 

He came to the English throne with great ease. The mis- 
eries of a disputed succession had been felt so long, and so 
dreadfully, that he was proclaimed within a few hours of 
Elizabeth's death, and was accepted b} 7 the nation, even 
without being asked to give any pledge that he would govern 
well, or that he would redress crying grievances. He took a 
month to come from Edinburgh to London ; and, by way of 
exercising his new power, hanged a pickpocket on the journey 
without an} 7 trial, and knighted everybody he could laj r hold 
of. He made two hundred knights before he got to his palace 
in London, and seven hundred before he had been in it three 
months. He also shovelled sixty-two new peers into the 
House of Lords — and there was a pretty large sprinkling of 
Scotchmen among them, } t ou may believe. 

His Sowship's prime Minister, Cecil (for I cannot do bet- 
ter than call his majesty what his favorite called him), was 
the enenry of Sir Walter Raleigh, and also of Sir Walter's 
political friend, Lord Cobham ; and his Sowship's first trou- 
ble was a plot originated by these two, and entered into by 
some others, with the old object of seizing the King and 
keeping him in imprisonment until he should change his min- 
isters. There were Catholic priests in the plot, and there 
were Puritan noblemen too ; for, although the Catholics and 
Puritans were strongl}* opposed to each other, the}' united at 
this time against his Sowship, because they knew that he had 
a design against both, after pretending to be friendly to each ; 
this design being to have only one high and convenient form 
of the Protestant religion, which everybody should be bound 
to belong to, whether they liked it or not. This plot was 
mixed up with another, which may or may not have had some 
reference to placing on the throne, at some time, the Lady 



JAMES THE FIRST. 359 

Arabella Stuart ; whose misfortune it was, to be the 
daughter of the younger brother of his Sowship's father, but 
who was quite innocent of any part in the scheme. Sir Wal- 
ter Raleigh was accused on the confession of Lord Cobham — 
a miserable creature, who said one thing at one time, and an- 
other thing at another time, and could be relied upon in 
nothing. The trial of Sir Walter Raleigh lasted from eight 
in the morning until nearly midnight ; he defended himself 
with such eloquence, genius, and spirit against all accusations, 
and against the insults of Coke, the Attornej'-General — 
who, according to the custom of the time, foully abused him 
— that those who went there detesting the prisoner, came 
away admiring him, and declaring that an}~thing so wonderful 
and so captivating was never heard. He was found guilty, 
nevertheless, and sentenced to death. Execution was de- 
ferred, and he was taken to the Tower. The two Catholic 
priests, less fortunate, were executed with the usual atrochry ; 
and Lord Cobham and two others were pardoned on the scaf- 
fold. His Sowship thought it wonderfully knowing in him to 
surprise the people by pardoning these three at the very 
block ; but, blundering, and bungling, as usual, he had very 
nearly overreached himself. For, the messenger on horse- 
back who brought the pardon, came so late, that he was 
pushed to the outside of the crowd, and was obliged to shout 
and roar out what he came for. The miserable Cobham did 
not gain much by being spared that da} r . He lived, both as 
a prisoner and a beggar, utterly despised, and miserably poor, 
for thirteen }'ears, and then died in an old outhouse belonging 
to one of his former servants. 

This plot got rid of, and Sir Walter Raleigh safely shut up 
in the Tower, his Sowship held a great dispute with the 
Puritans on their presenting a petition to him, and had it all 
his own wa} T — not so very wonderful, as he would talk con- 
tinually, and would not hear anybody else — and filled the 
Bishops with admiration. It was comfortably settled that 
there was to be only one form of religion, and that all men 



360 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

were to think exactly alike. But, although this was arranged 
two centuries and a half ago, and although the arrangement 
was supported by much fining and imprisonment, I do not 
find that it is quite successful, even yet. 

His Sowship, having that uncommonly high opinion of 
himself as a king, had a very low opinion of Parliament as a 
power that audaciously wanted to control him. When he 
called his first Parliament after he had been king a }*ear, he 
accordingly thought he would take pretty high ground with 
them, and told them that he commanded them " as an abso- 
lute king." The Parliament thought those strong words, and 
saw the necessity of upholding their authority. His Sowship 
had three children : Prince Henry, Prince Charles, and the 
Princess Elizabeth. It would have been well for one of 
these, and we shall too soon see which, if he had learnt a 
little wisdom concerning Parliaments from his father's obsti- 
nac}\ 

Now, the people still laboring under their old dread of the 
Catholic religion, this Parliament revived and strengthened 
the severe laws against it. And this so angered Robert 
Catesby, a restless Catholic gentleman of an old family, that 
he formed one of the most desperate and terrible designs ever 
conceived in the mind of man ; no less a scheme than the 
Gunpowder Plot. 

His object was, when the king, lords, and commons should 
be assembled at the next opening of Parliament, to blow them 
up, one and all, with a great mine of gunpowder. The first 
person to whom he confided this horrible idea was Thomas 
Winter, a Worcestershire gentleman who had served in the 
army abroad, and had been secretly employed in Catholic 
projects. While Winter was yet undecided, and when he 
had gone over to the Netherlands, to learn from the Spanish 
Ambassador there whether there was any hope of Catholics 
being relieved through the intercession of the King of Spain 
with his Sowship, he found at Ostend a tall dark daring 
man, whom he had known when they were both soldiers 



JAMES THE FIRST. 361 

abroad, and whose name was Guido — or Guy — Fawkes. 
Resolved to join the plot, he proposed it to this man, know- 
ing him to be the man for an} T desperate deed, and they two 
came back to England together. Here, they admitted two 
other conspirators : Thomas Percy, related to the Earl of 
Northumberland, and John Wright, his brother-in-law. All 
these met together in a solitar}' house in the open fields which 
were then near Clement's Inn, now a closely blocked-up part 
of London ; and when the}' had all taken a great oath of 
secrec} T , Catesby told the rest what his plan was. They then 
went up-stairs into a garret, and received the sacrament from 
Father Gerard, a Jesuit, who is said not to have known 
actually of the Gunpowder Plot, but who, I think, must 
have had his suspicions that there was something desperate 
afoot. 

Percy was a Gentleman Pensioner, and as he had occa- 
sional duties to perform about the Court, then kept at White- 
hall, there would be nothing suspicious in his living at West- 
minster. So, having looked well about him, and having 
found a house to let, the back of which joined the Parliament 
House, he hired it of a person named Ferris, for the purpose 
of undermining the wall. Having got possession of this 
house, the conspirators hired another on the Lambeth side of 
the Thames, which they used as a store-house for wood, 
gunpowder, and other combustible matters. These were to 
be removed at night (and afterwards were removed), bit by 
bit, to the house at Westminster ; and, that there might be 
some trusty person to keep watch over the Lambeth stores, 
they admitted another conspirator, by name Robert Kay, a 
very poor Catholic gentleman. 

All these arrangements had been made some months, and 
it was a dark wintr} 7 December night, when the conspirators, 
who had been in the meantime dispersed to avoid observation, 
met in the house at Westminster, and began to dig. They 
had laid in a good stock of eatables, to avoid going in and 
out, and they dug and dug with great ardor. But, the wall 



362 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

being tremendously thick, and the work very severe, they 
took into their plot Christopher Wright, a younger brother 
of John Wright, that they might have a new pair of hands to 
help. And Christopher Wright fell to like a fresh man, and 
they dug and dug by night and by day, and Fawkes stood 
sentinel all the time. And if any man's heart seemed to fail 
him at all, Fawkes said, "Gentlemen, we have abundance 
of powder and shot here, and there is no fear of our being 
taken alive, even if discovered." The same Fawkes, who, in 
the capacity of sentinel, was alwa} T s prowling about, soon 
picked up the intelligence that the King had prorogued the 
Parliament again, from the seventh of February, the day first 
fixed upon, until the third of October. When the conspirators 
knew this, they agreed to separate until after the Christmas 
holidays, and to take no notice of each other in the mean- 
while, and never to write letters to one another on any account. 
So, the house in Westminster was shut up again, and I sup- 
pose the neighbors thought that those strange looking men 
who lived there so gloomily, and went out so seldom, were 
gone away to have a merry Christmas somewhere. 

It was the beginning of Februar} 7 , sixteen hundred and five, 
when Catesbjr me t his fellow-conspirators again at this West- 
minster house. He had now admitted three more ; John 
Grant, a Warwickshire gentleman of a melancholy temper, 
who lived in a doleful house near Stratford-upon-Avon, with 
a frowning wall all around it, and a deep moat; Robert 
Winter, eldest brother of Thomas ; and Catesby's own ser- 
vant, Thomas Bates, who, Catesby thought, had had some 
suspicion of what his master was about. These three had all 
suffered more or less for their religion in Elizabeth's time. 
And now, they all began to dig again, and they dug and dug 
b} 7 night and b} T day. 

They found it dismal work alone there, underground, with 
such a fearful secret on their minds, and so many murders 
before them. They were filled with wild fancies. Sometimes 
they thought they heard a great bell tolling, deep down in the 



JAMES THE FIRST. 363 

earth under the Parliament House ; sometimes, they thought 
they heard low voices muttering about the Gunpowder Plot ; 
once in the morning, they really did hear a great rumbling 
noise over their heads, as they dug and sweated in their mine. 
Every man stopped and looked aghast at his neighbor, won- 
dering what had happened, when that bold prowler, Fawkes, 
who had been out to look, came in and told them that it was 
only a dealer in coals who had occupied a cellar under the 
Parliament House, removing his stock in trade to some other 
place. Upon this, the conspirators, who with all their digging 
and digging had not yet dug through the tremendously thick 
wall, changed their plan ; hired that cellar, which was directly 
under the House of Lords ; put six-and-thirty barrels of gun- 
powder in it, and covered them over with faggots and coals. 
Then the}' all dispersed again till September, when the follow- 
ing new conspirators were admitted ; Sir Edward Baynham, 
of Gloucestershire ; Sir Everard Digby, of Rutlandshire ; 
Ambrose Rook wood, of Suffolk ; Francis Tresham, of 
Northamptonshire. Most of these were rich, and were to 
assist the plot, some with money and some with horses on 
which the conspirators were to ride through the country and 
rouse the Catholics after the Parliament should be blown into 
air. 

Parliament being again prorogued from the third of Octo- 
ber to the fifth of November, and the conspirators being 
uneasy lest their design should have been found out, Thomas 
Winter said he would go up into the House of Lords on the 
clay of the prorogation, and see how matters looked. Nothing 
could be better. The unconscious Commissioners were walk- 
ing about and talking to one another, just over the six-and 
thirty barrels of gunpowder. He came back and told the 
rest so, and the}' went on with their preparations. They 
hired a ship, and kept it ready in the Thames, in which 
Fawkes was to sail for Flanders after firing with a slow match 
the train that was to explode the powder. A number of Cath- 
olic gentlemen not in the secret, were invited, on pretence of 



364 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

a hunting party, to meet Sir Everarcl Digby at Dunchurch on 
the fatal day, that they might be ready to act together. And 
now all was ready. 

But, now, the great wickedness and danger which had been 
all along at the bottom of this wicked plot, began to show 
itself. As the fifth of November drew near, most of the con- 
spirators, remembering that they had friends and relations 
who would be in the House of Lords that da}- , felt some 
natural relenting, and a wish to warn them to keep away. 
They were not much comforted by Catesby's declaring that 
in such a cause he would blow up his own son. Lord Mount- 
eagle, Tresham's brother-in-law, was certain to be in the 
house ; and when Tresham found that he could not prevail 
upon the rest to devise any means of sparing their friends, 
he wrote a mysterious letter to this lord and left it at his 
lodging in the dusk, urging him to keep away from the open- 
ing of Parliament, u since God and man had concurred to 
punish the wickedness of the times." It contained the words 
" that the Parliament should receive a terrible blow, and yet 
should not see who hurt them." And it added, " the danger 
is past as soon as you have burnt the letter." 

The ministers and courtiers made out that his Sowship, by 
a direct miracle from Heaven, found out what this letter 
meant. The truth is, that they were not long (as few men 
would be) in finding out for themselves ; and it was decided 
to let the conspirators alone, until the very day before the 
opening of Parliament. That the conspirators had their fears, 
is certain; for Tresham himself said before them all, that 
they were every one dead men ; and, although even he did 
not take flight, there is reason to suppose that he had warned 
other persons besides Lord Mounteagle. However, they 
were all firm ; and Fawkes, who was a man of iron, went 
down every day and night to keep watch in the cellar as 
usual. He was there about two in the afternoon of the fourth, 
when the Lord Chamberlain and Lord Mounteagle threw open 
the door and looked in. " Who are you, friend?" said they. 



JAMES THE FIRST. 365 

"Why," said Fawkes, "lam Mr. Percy's servant, and am 
looking after his store of fuel here." " Your master has laid 
in a pretty good store," they returned and shut the door, and 
went away. Fawkes, upon this, posted off to the other con- 
spirators to tell them all was quiet, and went back and shut 
himself up in the dark black cellar again, where he heard the 
bell go twelve o'clock and usher in the fifth of November. 
About two hours afterwards, he slowly opened the door, and 
came out to look about him, in his old prowling wa}\ He 
was instantly seized and bound, by a party of soldiers under 
Sir Thomas Knevett. He had a watch upon him, some 
touchwood, some tinder, some slow matches ; and thare was 
a dark lantern with a candle in it, lighted, behind the door. 
I^e had his boots and spurs on — to ride to the ship, I sup- 
pose — and it was well for the soldiers that they took him so 
suddenly. If they had left him but a moment's time to light 
a match, he certainly would have tossed it in among the 
powder, and blown up himself and them. 

The}' took him to the King's bed-chamber first of all, and 
there the King (causing him to be held very tight, and keep- 
ing a good way off, asked him how he could have the heart 
to intend to destroy so mairy innocent people? " Because," 
said Guy Fawkes, " desperate diseases need desperate reme- 
dies." To a little Scotch favorite, with a face like a terrier, 
who asked him (with no particular wisdom) why he had 
collected so much gunpowder, he replied, because he had 
meant to blow Scotchmen back to Scotland, and it would 
take a deal of powder to do that. Next day he was carried 
to the Tower, but would make no confession. Even after 
being horribly tortured, he confessed nothing that the Gov- 
ernment did not already know ; though he must have been in 
a fearful state — as his signature, still preserved, in contrast 
with his natural handwriting before he was put upon the 
dreadful rack, most frightfully shows. Bates, a ver} T differ- 
ent man, soon said the Jesuits had had to do with the plot, 
and probably, under the torture, would as readily have said 



366 A CHILD'S HISTOKY OF ENGLAND. 

an} T thing. Tresham, taken and put in the Tower too, made 
confessions and unmade them, and died of an illness that 
was heavy upon him. Rook wood, who had stationed relays 
of his own horses all the way to Dunchurch, did not mount 
to escape until the middle of the day, when the news of the 
plot was all over London. On the road he came up with the 
two Wrights, Catesby, and Percy ; and they all galloped 
together into Northamptonshire. Thence to Dunchurch, 
where they found the proposed party assembled. Finding, 
however, that there had been a plot, and that it had been 
discovered, the party disappeared in the course of the night, 
and left them alone with Sir Everard Digby. Away they 
all rode again, through Warwickshire and Worcestershire, 
to a house called Holbeach, on the borders of Staffordshire. 
They tried to raise the Catholics on their way, but were in- 
dignantly driven off by them. All this time they were hotty 
pursued by the sheriff of Worcester, and a fast increasing 
concourse of riders. At last, resolving to defend themselves 
at Holbeach, they shut themselves up in the house, and put 
some wet powder before the fire to dry. But it blew up, 
and Catesby was singed and blackened, and almost killed, 
and some of the others were sadly hurt. Still, knowing that 
the}' must die, they resolved to die there, and with only their 
swords in their hands appeared at the windows to be shot at 
by the sheriff and his assistants. Catesby said to Thomas 
Winter, after Thomas had been hit in the right arm which 
dropped powerless by his side, " Stand bj T me, Tom, and we 
will die together ! " which they did, being shot through the 
body by two bullets from one gun. John Wright, and Chris- 
topher Wright, and Percy, were also shot. Rookwood and 
Digby were taken : the former with a broken arm and a 
wound in his bod} f too. 

It was the fifteenth of Januaiy, before the trial of Guy 
Fawkes, and such of the other conspirators as were left alive, 
came on. They were all found guilty, all hanged, drawn, 
and quartered : some, in St. Paul's Churchyard, on the top 



JAMES THE FIRST. 367 

of Luelgate-hill ; some, before the Parliament House. A 
Jesuit priest, named Henry Garnet, to whom the dreadful 
design was said to have been communicated, was taken and 
tried ; and two of his servants, as well as a poor priest who 
was taken with him, were tortured without merc} T . He him- 
self was not tortured, but was surrounded in the Tower by 
tamperers and traitors, and so was made unfairly to convict 
himself out of his own mouth. He said, upon his trial, that 
he had done all he could to prevent the deed, and that he 
could not make public what had been told him in confession 
— though I am afraid he knew of the plot in other ways. 
He was found guilty and executed, after a manful defence, 
and the Catholic Church made a saint of him ; some rich and 
powerful persons, who had had nothing to do with the project, 
were fined and imprisoned for it b}* the Star Chamber ; the 
Catholics, in general, who had recoiled with horror from the 
idea of the infernal contrivance, were unjustly put under 
more severe laws than before ; and this was the end of the 
Gunpowder Plot. 



Second Part. 

His Sowship would pretty willingly, I think, have blown 
the House of Commons into the air himself; for his dread 
and jealousy of it knew no bounds all through his reign. 
When he was hard pressed for money he was obliged to order 
it to meet, as he could get no money without it ; and when it 
asked him first to abolish some of the monopolies in neces- 
saries of life, which were a great grievance to the people, 
and to redress other public wrongs, he flew into a rage and 
got rid of it again. At one time he wanted it to consent to 
the Union of England with Scotland, and quarrelled about 
that. At another time it wanted him to put down a most 
infamous Church abuse, called the High Commission Court, 
and he quarrelled with it about that. At another time it en- 



368 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

treated him not to be quite so fond of his archbishops and 
bishops who made speeches in his praise too awful to be re- 
lated, but to have some little consideration for the poor Pu- 
ritan clergy who were persecuted for preaching in their own 
way, and not according to the archbishops and bishops ; and 
they quarrelled about that. In short, what with hating the 
House of Commons, and pretending not to hate it ; and what 
with now sending some of its members who opposed him, to 
Newgate or to the Tower, and now telling the rest that they 
must not presume to make speeches about the public affairs 
which could not possibly concern them ; and what with ca- 
joling, and bullying, and frightening, and being frightened ; 
the House of Commons was the plague of his Sowship's ex- 
istence. It was pretty firm, however, in maintaining its 
rights, and insisting that the Parliament should make the 
laws, and not the King by his own single proclamations 
(which he tried hard to do) ; and his Sowship was so often 
distressed for money, in consequence, that he sold every sort 
of title and public office as if they were merchandise, and 
even invented a new dignity called a Baronetcy, which any- 
body could buy for a thousand pounds. 

These disputes with his Parliaments, and his hunting, and 
his drinking, and his lying in bed — for he was a great slug- 
gard — occupied his Sowship pretty well. The rest of his 
time he chiefly passed in hugging and slobbering his favor- 
ites. The first of these was Sir Philip Herbert, who had 
no knowledge whatever, except of dogs, and horses, and 
hunting, but whom he soon made Earl of Montgomery. 
The next, and a much more famous one, was Robert Carr, 
or Ker (for it is not certain which was his right name) . who 
came from the Border countiy, and whom he soon made Vis- 
count Rochester, and afterwards, Earl ob' Somerset. The 
wa}' in which his Sowship doted on this handsome young man, 
is even more odious to think of, than the way in which the 
really great men of England condescended to bow down be- 
fore him. The favorite's great friend was a certain Sir Thomas 



JAMES THE FIRST. 369 

Overbury, who wrote his love-letters for him, and assisted 
him in the duties of his many high places, which his own 
ignorance prevented him from discharging. But this same 
Sir Thomas haA r ing just manhood enough to dissuade the fa- 
vorite from a wicked marriage with the beautiful Countess of 
Essex, who was to get a divorce from her husband for the 
purpose, the said Countess, in her rage, got Sir Thomas put 
into the Tower, and there poisoned him. Then the favorite 
and this bad woman were publicly married by the King's pet 
bishop, with as much to-do and rejoicing, as if he had been 
the best man, and she the best woman, upon the face of the 
earth. 

But, after a longer sunshine than might have been expected 
— /of seven years or so, that is to say — another handsome 
young man started up and eclipsed the Earl of Somerset. 
This was George Villiers, the youngest son of a Leicester- 
shire gentleman : who came to Court with all the Paris fash- 
ions on him, and could dance as well as the best mountebank 
that ever was seen. He soon danced himself into the good 
graces of his Sowship, and danced the other favorite out of 
favor. Then, it was all at once discovered that the Earl and 
Countess of Somerset had not deserved all those great pro- 
motions and might}' rejoicings, and they were separately tried 
for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbuiy, and for other crimes. 
But, the King was so afraid of his late favorite's publicly 
telling some disgraceful things he knew of him — which he 
darkly threatened to do — that he was even examined with 
two men standing, one on either side of him, each with a 
cloak in his hand, ready to throw it over his head and stop 
his mouth if he should break out with what he had it in his 
power to tell. So, a veiy lame affair was purposely made of 
the trial, and his punishment was an allowance of four thou- 
sand pounds a year in retirement, while the Countess was 
pardoned, and allowed to pass into retirement too. They 
hated one another by this time, and lived to revile and tor- 
ment each other some years. 

24 



370 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

While these events were in progress, and while his Sow- 
ship was making such an exhibition of himself, from da} T to 
da} 7 and from year to year, as is not often seen in any stj 7 , 
three remarkable deaths took place in England. The first 
was that of the Minister, Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, 
who was past sixt} 7 , and had never been strong, being de- 
formed from his birth. He said at last that he had no wish 
to live ; and no Minister need have had, with his experience 
of the meanness and wickedness of those disgraceful times. 
The second was that of the Lady Arabella Stuart, who 
alarmed his Sowship mightily, by privately marrying Wil- 
liam Seymour, son of Lord Beauchamp, who was a descend- 
ant of King Henry the Seventh, and who, his Sowship 
thought, might consequent!} 7 increase and strengthen any 
claim she might one day set up to the throne. She was 
separated from her husband (who was put in the Tower) and 
thrust into a boat to be confined at Durham. She escaped 
in a man's dress to get away in a French ship from Graves- 
end to France, but unhappily missed her husband, who had 
escaped too, and was soon taken. She went raving mad in 
the miserable Tower, and died there after four years. The 
last, and the most important of these three deaths, was that 
of Prince Henry, the heir to the throne, in the nineteenth 
year of his age. He was a promising young prince, and 
greatly liked ; a quiet well-conducted youth, of whom two 
very good things are known : first, that his father was jeal- 
ous of him ; secondly, that he was the friend of Sir Walter 
Raleigh, languishing through all those years in the Tower, 
and often said that no man but his father would keep such a 
bird in such a cage. On the occasion of the preparations for 
the marriage of his sister the Princess Elizabeth with a for- 
eign prince (and an unhappy marriage it turned out), he 
came from Richmond, where he had been very ill, to greet 
his new brother-in-law, at the palace at Whitehall. There 
he played a great game at tennis, in his shirt, though it was 
very cold weather, and was seized with an alarming illness, 



JAMES THE FIEST. 371 

and died within a fortnight of a putrid fever. For this young 
prince Sir Walter Raleigh wrote, in his prison in the Tower, 
the beginning of a History of the World : a wonderful 
instance how little his Sowship could do to confine a great 
man's mind, however long he might imprison his body. 

And this mention of Sir Walter Raleigh, who had many 
faults, but who never showed so many merits as in trouble 
and adversity, may bring me at once to the end of his sad 
story. After an imprisonment in the Tower of twelve long 
years, he proposed to resume those old sea voj'ages of his, 
and to go to South America in search of gold. His Sowship, 
divided between his wish to be on good terms with the 
Spaniards through whose territory Sir Walter must pass (he 
hacj long had an idea of marrying Prince Henry to a Spanish 
Princess), and his avaricious eagerness to get hold of the 
gold, did not know what to do. But, in the end, he set Sir 
Walter free, taking securities for his return ; and Sir Walter 
fitted out an expedition at his own cost, and, on the twenty- 
eighth of March, one thousand six hundred and seventeen, 
sailed away in command of one of its ships, which he omi- 
nously called the Destiiry. The expedition failed ; the com- 
mon men, not finding the gold they had expected, mutinied ; 
a quarrel broke out between Sir Walter and the Spaniards, 
who hated him for old successes of his against them ; and he 
took and burnt a little town called Saint Thomas. For this 
he was denounced to his Sowship by the Spanish Ambassador 
as a pirate ; and returning almost broken-hearted, with his 
hopes and fortunes shattered, his company of friends dis- 
persed, and his brave son (who had been one of them) killed, 
he was taken — through the treacheiy of Sir Lewis Stukely, 
his near relation, a scoundrel and a Vice- Admiral — and was 
once again immured in his prison-home of so many years. 

His Sowship being mightily disappointed in not getting 
any gold, Sir Walter Raleigh was tried as unfairly, and with 
as many lies and evasions as the judges and law officers and 
eveiy other authority in Church and State habitually practised 



372 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

under such a King. After a great deal of prevarication on 
all parts but his own, it was declared that he must die under 
his former sentence, now fifteen years old. So, on the twenty- 
eighth of October, one thousand six hundred and eighteen, 
he was shut up in the Gate House at Westminster to pass 
his last night on earth, and there he took leave of his good 
and faithful lady who was worthy to have lived in better days. 
At eight o'clock next morning, after a cheerful breakfast, 
and a pipe, and a cup of good wine, he was taken to Old 
Palace Yard in Westminster, where the scaffold was set up, 
and where so many people of high degree were assembled to 
see him die, that it was a matter of some difficulty to get him 
through the crowd. He behaved most nobly, but if any- 
thing lay heavy on his mind, it was that Earl of Essex, whose 
head he had seen roll off; and he solemnly said that he had 
had no hand in bringing him to the block, and that he had 
shed tears for him when he died. As the morning was very 
cold, the Sheriff said, would he come down to a fire for a 
little space, and warm himself? But Sir Walter thanked him, 
and said no, he would rather it were done at once, for he was 
ill of fever and ague, and in another quarter of an hour his 
shaking fit would come upon him if he were still alive, and 
his enemies might then suppose that he trembled for fear. 
With that, he kneeled and made a very beautiful and Chris- 
tian prayer. Before he laid his head upon the block he felt 
the edge of the axe, and said, with a smile upon his face, 
that it was a sharp medicine, but would cure the worst disease. 
When he was bent down ready for death, he said to the ex- 
ecutioner, finding that he hesitated, " What dost thou fear? 
Strike, man ! " So, the axe came down and struck his head 
off, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. 

The new favorite got on fast. He was made a viscount, 
he was made Duke of Buckingham, he was made a marquis, 
he was made Master of the Horse, he was made Lord High 
Admiral — and the Chief Commander of the gallant English 
forces that had dispersed the Spanish Armada, was displaced 




EXECUTION OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH 



JAMES THE FIRST. 373 

to make room for him. He had the whole kingdom at his 
disposal, and his mother sold all the profits and honors of 
the State, as if she had kept a shop. He blazed all over 
with diamonds and other precious stones, from his hatband 
and his earrings to his shoes. Yet he was an ignorant pre- 
sumptuous swaggering compound of knave and fool, with 
nothing but his beauty and his dancing to recommend him. 
This is the gentleman who called himself his Majesty's dog 
and slave, and called his Majesty Your Sowship. His Sow- 
ship called him Steenie ; it is supposed, because that was a 
nickname for Stephen, and because St. Stephen was generally 
represented in pictures as a handsome saint. 

His Sowship was driven sometimes to his wits'-end by his 
trimming between the general dislike of the Catholic religion 
at home, and his desire to wheedle and flatter it abroad, as 
his only means of getting a rich princess for his son's wife : 
a part of whose fortune he might cram into his greasy 
pockets. Prince Charles — or as his Sowship called him, 
Bab} 7 Charles — being now Prince of Wales, the old project 
of a marriage with the Spanish King's daughter had been re- 
vived for him ; and as she could not marry a Protestant 
without leave from the Pope, his Sowship himself secretly 
and meanly wrote to his Infallibility, asking for it. The 
negotiation for this Spanish marriage takes up a larger space 
in great books, than you can imagine, but the upshot of it all 
is, that when it had been held off by the Spanish Court for a 
long time, Baby Charles and Steenie set off in disguise as 
Mr. Thomas Smith and Mr. John Smith, to see the Spanish 
Princess ; that Baby Charles pretended to be desperately in 
love with her, and jumped off walls to look at her, and made 
a considerable fool of himself in a good many ways ; that 
she was called Princess of Wales, and that the whole Spanish 
Court believed Baby Charles to be all but dying for her sake, 
as he expressly told them he was ; that Baby Charles and 
Steenie came back to England, and were received with as 
much rapture as if they had been a blessing to it ; that Baby 



374 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Charles had actually fallen in love with Henrietta Maria, 
the French King's sister, whom he had seen in Paris ; that he 
thought it a wonderfully fine and princely thing to have de- 
ceived the Spaniards, all through ; and that he openly said, 
with a chuckle, as soon as he was safe and sound at home 
again, that the Spaniards were great fools to have believed 
him. 

Like most dishonest men, the Prince and the favorite com- 
plained that the people whom the} 7 had deluded were dishon- 
est. They made such misrepresentations of the treachery of 
the Spaniards in this business of the Spanish match, that the 
English nation became eager for a war with them. Although 
the gravest Spaniards laughed at the idea of his Sowship in 
a warlike attitude, the Parliament granted money for the be- 
ginning of hostilities, and the treaties with Spain were pub- 
licly declared to be at an end. The Spanish ambassador in 
London — probably with the help of the fallen favorite, the 
Earl of Somerset — being unable to obtain speech with his 
Sowship, slipped a paper into his hand, declaring that he was 
a prisoner in his own house, and was entirely governed by 
Buckingham and his creatures. The first effect of this letter 
was that his Sowship began to cry and whine, and took Baby 
Charles away from Steenie, and went down to Windsor, 
gabbling all sorts of nonsense. The end of it was that his 
Sowship hugged his dog and slave, and said he was quite 
satisfied. 

He had given the Prince and the favorite almost unlimited 
power to settle anything with the Pope as to the Spanish 
marriage ; and he now, with a view to a French one, signed 
a treaty that all Roman Catholics in England should exercise 
their religion freely, and should never be required to take 
any oath contrary thereto. In return for this, and for other 
concessions much less to be defended, Henrietta Maria was 
to become the Prince's wife, and was to bring him a fortune 
of eight hundred thousand crowns. 

His Sowship's eyes were getting red with eagerly looking 



JAMES THE FIRST. 375 

for the money, when the end of a gluttonous life came upon 
him ; and, after a fortnight's illness, on Sunday the twenty- 
seventh of March, one thousand six hundred and twenty-five, 
he died. He had reigned twenty-two years, and was fifty- 
nine years old. I know of nothing more abominable in his- 
tory than the adulation that was lavished on this King, and 
the vice and corruption that such a barefaced habit of tying 
produced in his court. It is much to be doubted whether 
one man of honor, and not utterly self-disgraced, kept his 
place near James the First. Lord Bacon, that able and wise 
philosopher, as the First Judge in the Kingdom in this reign, 
became a public spectacle of dishonesty and corruption ; and 
in his base flattery of his Sowship, and in his crawling ser- 
vility to his dog and slave, disgraced himself even more. 
But, a creature like his Sowship set upon a throne is like the 
Plague, and everybody receives infection from him. 



376 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE FIRST. 

Baby Charles became King Charles the First, in the 
twenty-fifth year of his age. Unlike his father, he was 
usually amiable in his private character, and grave and dig- 
nified in his bearing ; but, like his father, he had monstrously 
exaggerated notions of the rights of a king, and was evasive, 
and not to be trusted. If his word could have been relied 
upon, his history might have had a different end. 

His first care was to send over that insolent upstart, Buck- 
ingham, to bring Henrietta Maria from Paris to be his Queen ; 
upon which occasion Buckingham — with his usual audacity 
— made love to the young Queen of Austria, and was very 
indignant indeed with Cardinal Richelieu, the French Min- 
ister, for thwarting his intentions. The English people were 
veiy well disposed to like their new Queen, and to receive 
her with great favor when she came among them as a stran- 
ger. But, she held the Protestant religion in great dislike, 
and brought over a crowd of unpleasant priests, who made 
her do some very ridiculous things, and forced themselves 
upon the public notice in many disagreeable ways. Hence, 
the people soon came to dislike her, and she soon came to 
dislike them ; and she did so much all through this reign in 
setting the King (who was dotingty fond of her) against his 
subjects, that it would have been better for him if she had 
never been born. 

Now, you are to understand that King Charles the First — 
of his own determination to be a high and might}" King not 
to be called to account by anybod}', and urged on by his 



CHARLES THE FIRST. 377 

Queen besides — deliberately set himself to put his Parlia- 
ment down and to put himself up. You are also to under- 
stand, that even in pursuit of this wrong idea (enough in 
itself to have ruined any king) he never took a straight 
course, but always took a crooked one. 

He was bent upon war with Spain, though neither the 
House of Commons nor the people were quite clear as to 
the justice of that war, now that they began to think a little 
more about the story of the Spanish match. But the King 
rushed into it hotly, raised money by illegal means to meet 
its expenses, and encountered a miserable failure at Cadiz, 
in the very first year of his reign. An expedition to Cadiz 
had been made in the hope of plunder, but as it was not suc- 
cessful, it was necessary to get a grant of money from the 
Parliament ; and when they met, in no very complying humor, 
the King told them, " to make haste to let him have it, or it 
would be the worse for themselves." Not put in a more com- 
plying humor by this, they impeached the King's favorite, the 
Duke of Buckingham, as the cause (which he undoubtedly 
was) of many great public grievances and wrongs. The 
King, to save him, dissolved the Parliament without getting 
the money he wanted ; and when the Lords implored him to 
consider and grant a little delay, he replied, "No, not one 
minute." He then began to raise money for himself by the 
following means among others. 

He levied certain duties called tonnage and poundage which 
had not been granted by the Parliament, and could lawfully 
be levied by no other power; he called upon the seaport 
towns to furnish, and to pay all the cost for three months 
of, a fleet of armed ships ; and he required the people to 
unite in lending him large sums of money, the repayment of 
which was very doubtful. If the poor people refused, they 
were pressed as soldiers or sailors ; if the gentry refused, 
the}' were sent to prison. Five gentlemen, named Sir Thomas 
Darnel, John Corbet, Walter Earl, John Heveningham, 
and Everard Hampden, for refusing were taken up by a 



378 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

warrant of the King's privy council, and were sent to prison 
without any cause but the King's pleasure being stated for 
their imprisonment. Then the question came to be solemnly 
tried, whether this was not a violation of Magna Charta, and 
an encroachment by the King on the highest rights of the 
English people. His lawyers contended No, because to en- 
croach upon the rights of the English people would be to do 
wrong, and the King could do no wrong. The accommodating 
judges decided in favor of this wicked nonsense ; and here 
was a fatal division between the King and the people. 

For all this, it became necessary to call another Parliament. 
The people, sensible of the danger in which their liberties 
were, chose for it those who were best known for their deter- 
mined opposition to the King ; but still the King, quite 
blinded b} r his determination to cany everything before him, 
addressed them when they met, in a contemptuous manner, 
and just told them in so many words that he had only called 
them together because he wanted money. The Parliament, 
strong enough and resolute enough to know that they would 
lower his tone, cared little for what he said, and laid before 
him one of the great documents of history, which is called 
the Petition of Right, requiring that the free men of Eng- 
land should no longer be called upon to lend the King mone} r , 
and should no longer be pressed or imprisoned for refusing 
to do so ; further, that the free men of England should no 
longer be seized b}' the King's special mandate or warrant, it 
being contrary to their rights and liberties and the laws of 
their country. At first the King returned an answer to this 
petition, in which he tried to shirk it altogether ; but, the 
House of Commons then showing their determination to go 
on with the impeachment of Buckingham the King in alarm 
returned an answer, giving his consent to all that was re- 
quired of him. He not only afterwards departed from his 
word and honor on these points, over and over again, but, at 
this very time, he did the mean and dissembling act of pub- 
lishing his first answer and not his second ■ — merely that the 



CHARLES THE FIRST. 379 

people might suppose that the Parliament had not got the 
better of him. 

That pestilent Buckingham, to gratif}' his own wounded 
vanity, had Ity this time involved the country in war with 
France, as well as with Spain. For such miserable causes 
and such miserable creatures are wars sometimes made ! But 
he was destined to do little more mischief in this world. One 
morning, as he was going out of his house to his carriage, he 
turned to speak to a certain Colonel Fryer who was with 
him ; and he was violently stabbed with a knife, which the 
murderer left sticking in his heart. This happened in his 
hall. He had had angry words up-stairs, just before, with 
some French gentlemen, who were immediately suspected by 
hjs servants, and had a close escape from being set upon 
and killed. In the midst of the noise, the real murderer, 
who had gone to the kitchen and might easily have got away, 
drew his sword and cried out, " I am the man ! " His name 
was John Felton, a Protestant and a retired officer in the 
army. He said he had had no personal ill-will to the Duke, 
but had killed him as a curse to the country. He had aimed 
his blow well, for Buckingham had only had time to ciy out, 
"Villain!" and then he drew out the knife, fell against a 
table, and died. 

The council made a mighty business of examining John 
Felton about this murder, though it was a plain case enough, 
one would think. He had come seventy miles to do it, he 
told them, and he did it for the reason he had declared ; if 
they put him upon the rack, as that noble Marquis of Dor- 
set whom he saw before him, had the goodness to threaten, 
he gave that marquis warning, that he would accuse him as 
his accomplice ! The King was unpleasantly anxious to have 
him racked, nevertheless ; but as the judges now found out 
that torture was contrary to the law of England — it is a pity 
they did not make the discovery a little sooner — John Felton 
was simply executed for the murder he had done. A murder 
it undoubtedly was, and not in the least to be defended : 



380 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

though he had freed England from one of the most profligate, 
contemptible, and base court favorites to whom it has ever 
yielded. 

A very different man now arose. This was Sir Thomas 
Wentworth, a Yorkshire gentleman, who had sat in Parlia- 
ment for a long time, and who had favored arbitrary and 
haughty principles, but who had gone over to the people's 
side on receiving offence from Buckingham. The King, 
much wanting such a man — for, besides being naturally 
favorable to the King's cause, he had great abilities — made 
him first a Baron, and then a Viscount, and gave him high 
employment, and won him most completely. 

A Parliament, however, was still in existence, and was not 
to be won. On the twentieth of January, one thousand six 
hundred and twenty-nine, Sir John Eliot, a great man who 
had been active in the Petition of Right, brought forward 
other strong resolutions against the King's chief instruments, 
and called upon the Speaker to put them to the vote. To 
this the Speaker answered, "he was commanded otherwise 
by the King," and got up to leave the chair — which, accord- 
ing to the rules of the House of Commons would have 
obliged it to adjourn without doing anything more — when 
two members, named Mr. Hollis and Mr. Valentine, held 
him clown. A scene of great confusion arose among the mem- 
bers ; and while many swords were drawn and flashing about, 
the King, who was kept informed of all that was going on, told 
the captain of his guard to go clown to the House and force the 
doors. The resolutions were \>y that time, however, voted, 
and the House adjourned. Sir John Eliot and those two 
members who had held the Speaker clown, were quickly sum- 
moned before the council. As they claimed it to be their 
privilege not to answer out of Parliament for anything they 
had said in it, they were committed to the Tower. The King 
then went down and dissolved the Parliament, in a speech 
wherein he made mention of these gentlemen as ' ' Vipers " — 
which did not do him much good that ever I have heard of. 



CHARLES THE FIRST. 381 

As they refused to gain their liberty by sajing they were 
sorry for what they had done, the King, alwa} r s remarkably 
unforgiving, never overlooked their offence. When they de- 
manded to be brought up before the Court of King's Bench, 
he even resorted to the meanness of having them moved about 
from prison to prison, so that the writs issued for that purpose 
should not legally find them. At last they came before the 
court and were sentenced to heavj 7 fines, and to be imprisoned 
during the King's pleasure. When Sir John Eliot's health 
had quite given way, and he so longed for change of air and 
scene as to petition for his release, the King sent back the 
answer (worthy of his Sowship himself) that the petition was 
not humble enough. When he sent another petition b}' his 
young son, in which he pathetically offered to go back to 
prison when his health was restored, if he might be released 
for its recovery, the King still disregarded it. When he died 
in the Tower, and his children petitioned to be allowed to take 
his body clown to Cornwall, there to lay it among the ashes 
of his forefathers, the King returned for answer, " Let Sir 
John Eliot's body be buried in the church of that parish 
where he died." All this was like a very little King indeed, 
I think. 

And now, for twelve long years, steadily pursuing his de- 
sign of setting himself up and putting the people down, the 
King called no Parliament ; but ruled without one. If twelve 
thousand volumes were written in his praise (as a good many 
have been) it would still remain a fact, impossible to be de- 
nied, that for twelve years King Charles the First reigned in 
England unlawfully and despotically, seized upon his sub- 
jects' goods and money at his pleasure, and punished accord- 
ing to his unbridled will all who ventured to oppose him. It 
is a fashion with some people to think that this King's career 
was cut short ; but I must say myself that I think he ran a 
pretty long one. 

William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, was the King's 
right-hand man in the religious part of the putting down of 



382 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

the people's liberties. Laud, who was a sincere man, of 
large learning but small sense — for the two things sometimes 
go together in very different quantities — though a Protestant, 
held opinions so near those of the Catholics, that the Pope 
wanted to make a Cardinal of him, if he would have accepted 
that favor. He looked upon vows, robes, lighted candles, 
images, and so forth, as amazingly important in religious 
ceremonies ; and he brought in an immensity of bowing and 
candle-snuffing. He also regarded archbishops and bishops 
as a sort of miraculous persons, and was inveterate in the 
last degree against any who thought otherwise. Accordingly, 
he offered up thanks to Heaven, and was in a state of much 
pious pleasure, when a Scotch clergyman named Leighton, 
was pilloried, whipped, branded in the cheek, and had one of 
his ears cut off and one of his nostrils slit, for calling bishops 
trumpery and the inventions of men. He originated on a 
Sunday morning the prosecution of William Prynne, a bar- 
rister who was of similar opinions, and who was fined a thou- 
sand pounds ; who was pilloried ; who had his ears cut off on 
two occasions — one ear at a time — and who was imprisoned 
for life. He highly approved of the punishment of Doctor 
Bastwick, a physician ; who was also fined a thousand 
pounds ; and who afterwards had his ears cut off, and was 
imprisoned for life. These were gentle methods of persua- 
sion, some will tell you ; I think, they were rather calculated 
to be alarming to the people. 

In the money part of the putting down of the people's lib- 
erties, the King was equally gentle, as some will tell you : as 
I think, equally alarming. He levied those duties of tonnage 
and poundage, and increased them as he thought fit. He 
granted monopolies to companies of merchants on their paying 
him for them, notwithstanding the great complaints that had, 
for years and 3-ears, been made on the subject of monopolies. 
He fined the people for disobeying proclamations issued by 
his Sowship in direct violation of law. He revived the de- 
tested Forest laws, and took private property to himself as 



CHARLES THE FIEST. 383 

his forest right. Above all, he determined to have what was 
called Ship Money ; that is to sa} T , money for the support of 
the fleet — not only from the seaports, but from all the counties 
of England : having found out that, in some ancient time or 
other, all the counties paid it. The grievance of this ship 
mone} r being somewhat too strong, John Chambers, a citizen 
of London, refused to pay his part of it. For this the Lord 
Mayor ordered John Chambers to prison, and for that John 
Chambers brought a suit against the Lord Mayor. Lord 
Say, also, behaved like a real nobleman, and declared he 
would not pay. But, the sturdiest and best opponent of the 
ship money was John Hampden, a gentleman of Buckingham- 
shire, who had sat among the "vipers" in the House of 
Commons when there was such a thing, and who had been 
the bosom friend of Sir John Eliot. This case was tried 
before the twelve judges in the Court of Exchequer, and 
again the King's lawyers said it was impossible that ship 
money could be wrong, because the King could do no wrong, 
however hard he tried — and he really did try very hard 
during these twelve j'ears. Seven of the judges said that 
was quite true, and Mr. Hampden was bound to pay : five of 
the judges said that was quite false, and Mr. Hampden was 
not bound to paj 7 . So, the King triumphed (as he thought) , 
by making Hampden the most popular man in England ; 
where matters were getting to that height now, that many 
honest Englishmen could not endure their country, and sailed 
away across the seas to found a colony in Massachusetts Bay 
in America. It is said that Hampden himself and his rela- 
tion Oliver Cromwell were going with a company of such 
vo} r agers, and were actually on board ship, when they were 
stopped by a proclamation, prohibiting sea captains to carry 
out such passengers without the roj^al license. But O ! it 
would have been well for the King if he had let them go ! 

This was the state of England. If Laud had been a mad- 
man just broke loose, he could not have done more mischief 
than he did in Scotland. In his endeavors (in which he was 



384 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

seconded by the King, then in person in that part of his do- 
minions) to force his own ideas of bishops, and his own 
religious forms and ceremonies, upon the Scotch, he roused 
that nation to a perfect frenzy. They formed a solemn 
league, which the}' called The Covenant, for the preservation 
of their own religious forms ; they rose in arms throughout 
the whole country ; they summoned all their men to prayers 
and sermons twice a day by beat of drum ; they sang psalms, 
in which the} T compared their enemies to all the evil spirits 
that ever were heard of ; and the} T solemnly vowed to smite 
them with the sword. At first the King tried force, then 
treaty, then a Scottish Parliament which did not answer at 
all. Then he tried the Earl of Strafford, formerly Sir 
Thomas Went worth ; who, as Lord Wentworth, had been 
governing Ireland. He, too, had carried it with a ver} T high 
hand there, though to the benefit and prosperity of that 
country. 

Strafford and Laud were for conquering the Scottish people 
by force of arms. Other lords who were taken into council, 
recommended that a Parliament should at last be called ; to 
which the King unwillingly consented. So, on the thirteenth 
of April, one thousand six hundred and forty, that then 
strange sight, a Parliament, was seen at Westminster. It is 
called the Short Parliament, for it lasted a very little while. 
While the members were all looking at one another, doubtful 
who would dare to speak, Mr. Pym arose and set forth all 
that the King had done unlawfully during the past twelve 
years, and what was the position to which England was 
reduced. This great example set, other members took cour- 
age and spoke the truth freely, though with great patience 
and moderation. The King, a little frightened, sent to say 
that if they would grant him a certain sum on certain terms, 
no more ship money should be raised. They debated the 
matter for two days ; and then, as they would not give him 
all he asked without promise or inquiry, he dissolved them. 

But they knew very well that he must have a Parliament 



CHARLES THE FIRST. 385 

now ; and he began to make that discovery too, though rather 
late in the day. Wherefore, on the twenty-fourth of Septem- 
ber, being then at York with an army collected against the 
Scottish people, but his own men sullen and discontented like 
the rest of the nation, the King told the great council of the 
Lords, whom he had called to meet him there, that he would 
summon another Parliament to assemble on the third of No- 
vember. The soldiers of the Covenant had now forced their 
way into England and had taken possession of the northern 
counties, where the coals are got. As it would never do to 
be without coals, and as the King's troops could make no 
head against the Covenanters so full of gloomy zeal, a truce 
was made, and a treaty with Scotland was taken into con- 
sideration. Meanwhile the northern counties paid the Cov- 
enanters to leave the coals alone, and keep quiet. 

We have now disposed of the Short Parliament. We 
have next to see what memorable things were done by the 
Long one. 



Second Part. 

The Long Parliament assembled on the third of November, 
one thousand six hundred and forty. On that da}' week the 
Earl of Strafford arrived from York, very sensible that the 
spirited and determined men who formed that Parliament 
were no friends towards him, who had not onry deserted the 
cause of the people, but who had on all occasions opposed 
himself to their liberties. The King told him, for his com- 
fort, that the Parliament " should not hurt one hair of his 
head." But, on the very next chjy Mr. P} T m, in the House of 
Commons, and with great solemnity, impeached the Earl of 
Strafford as a traitor. He was immediately taken into cus- 
tody and fell from his proud height. 

It was the twenty-second of March before he was brought 
to trial in Westminster Hall ; where, although he was very 

25 



386 A CHILD'S HISTOKY OF ENGLAND. 

ill and suffered great pain, he defended himself with such 
ability and majest}^, that it was doubtful whether he would 
not get the best of it. But on the thirteenth day of the 
trial, Pym produced in the House of Commons a cop} T of 
some notes of a council, found b}^ young Sir Harry Vane in 
a red velvet cabinet belonging to his father (Secretary Vane, 
who sat at the council-table with the Earl) , in which Strafford 
had distinctly told the King that he was free from all rules 
and obligations of government, and might do with his people 
whatever he liked ; and in which he had added — ' ' You have 
an army in Ireland that you ma}' employ to reduce this king- 
dom to obedience." It was not clear whether by the words 
" this kingdom," he had really meant England or Scotland ; 
but the Parliament contended that he meant England, and 
this was treason. At the same sitting of the House of Com- 
mons it was resolved to bring in a bijl of attainder declaring 
the treason to have been committed : in preference to pro- 
ceeding with the trial by impeachment, which would have 
required the treason to be proved. . ' 

So, a bill was brought in at once, was carried through the 
House of Commons by a large majority, and was sent up to 
the House of Lords. While it was still uncertain whether 
the House of Lords would pass it and the King consent 
to it, Pyin disclosed to the House of Commons that the 
King and Queen had both been plotting with the officers of 
the army to bring up the soldiers and control the Parliament, 
and also to introduce two hundred soldiers into the Tower of 
London to effect the Earl's escape. The plotting with the 
army was revealed by one George Goring, the son of a lord 
of that name : a bad fellow who was one of the original 
plotters, and turned traitor. The King had actually given 
his warrant for the admission of the two hundred men into 
the Tower, and they would have got in too, but for the 
refusal of the governor — a sturdy Scotchman of the name 
of Balfour — to admit them. These matters being made 
public, great numbers of people began to riot outside the 



CHARLES THE FIRST. 387 

Houses of Parliament, and to cry out for the execution of 
the Earl of Strafford, as one of the King's chief instruments 
against them. The bill passed the House of Lords while 
the people were in this state of agitation, and was laid before 
the King for his assent, together with another bill declaring 
that the Parliament then assembled should not be dissolved 
or adjourned without their own consent. The King — not 
unwilling to save a faithful servant, though he had no great 
attachment for him — was in some doubt what to do ; but 
he gave his consent to both bills, although he in his heart 
believed that the bill against the Earl of Strafford was un- 
lawful and unjust. The Earl had written to him, telling him 
that he was willing to die for his sake. But he had not 
expected that his royal master would take him at his word 
quite so readily ; for, when he heard his doom, he laid his 
hand upon his heart, and said, " Put not your trust in 
Princes ! " 

v The King, who never could be straightforward and plain, 
through one single day or through one single sheet of paper, 
wrote a letter to the Lords, and sent it by the } T ouhg Prince 
of Wales, entreating them to prevail with the Commons that 
" that unfortunate man should fulfil the natural course of his 
life in a close imprisonment." In a postscript to the very 
same letter, he added, "If he must die, it were charity to 
reprieve him till Saturday." If there had been airy doubt of 
his fate, this weakness and meanness would have settled it. 
The very next day, which was the twelfth of May, he was 
brought out to be beheaded on Tower Hill. 

Archbishop Laud, who had been so fond of having people's 
ears cropped off and their noses slit, was now confined in the 
Tower too ; and when the Earl went by his window to his 
death, he was there, at his request, to give him his blessing. 
They had been great friends in the King's cause, and the 
Earl had written to him in the days of their power that he 
thought it would be an admirable thing to have Mr. Hamp- 
den publicly whipped for refusing to pay the ship money. 



388 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

However, those high and mighty doings were over now, and 
the Earl went his way to death with dignity and heroism. 
The Governor wished him to get into a coach at the Tower 
gate, for fear the people should tear him to pieces ; but he 
said it was all one to him whether he died by the axe or by 
the people's hands. So, he walked, with a firm tread and 
a stately look, and sometimes pulled off his hat to them as 
he passed along. They were profoundly quiet. He made a 
speech on the scaffold from some notes he had prepared 
(the paper was found lying there after his head was struck 
off) , and one blow of the axe killed him, in the forty-ninth 
year of his age. 

This bold and daring act, the Parliament accompanied by 
other famous measures, all originating (as even this did) in 
the King's having so grossly and so long abused his power. 
The name of Delinquents was applied to all sheriffs and 
other officers who had been concerned in raising the ship 
mone} 7 , or any other money, from the people, in an unlawful 
manner; the Hampden judgment was reversed; the. judges 
who had decided against Hampden were called upon to give 
large securities that the}^ would take such consequences as 
Parliament might impose upon them ; and one was arrested 
as he sat in High Court, and carried off to prison. Laud 
was impeached ; the unfortunate victims whose ears had been 
cropped and whose noses had been slit, were brought out of 
prison in triumph ; and a bill was passed declaring that a 
Parliament should be called every third } T ear, and that if the 
King and the King's officers did not call it, the people should 
assemble of themselves and summon it, as of their own right 
and power. Great illuminations and rejoicings took place 
over all these things, and the country was wildly excited. 
That the Parliament took advantage of this excitement and 
stirred them up by every means, there is no doubt ; but } T ou 
are always to remember those twelve long }^ears, during 
which the King had tried so hard whether he really could do 
any wrong or not. 



CHARLES THE FIRST. 389 

All this time there was a great religious outcry against the 
right of the Bishops to sit in Parliament ; to which the Scot- 
tish people particularly objected. The English were divided 
on this subject, and, partly on this account and partly be- 
cause they had had foolish expectations that the Parliament 
would be able to take off nearly all the taxes, numbers of 
them sometimes wavered and inclined towards the King. 

I believe myself, that if, at this or almost any other period 
of his life, the King could have been trusted by any man not 
out of his senses, he might have saved himself and kept his 
throne. But, on the English army being disbanded, he 
plotted with the officers again, as he had done before, and 
established the fact beyond all doubt by putting his signature 
of approval to a petition against the Parliamentary leaders, 
which was drawn up by certain officers. When the Scottish 
army was disbanded, he went to Edinburgh in four da}~s — 
which was going very fast at that time — to plot again, and 
so darkly too, that it is difficult to decide what his whole 
object was. Some suppose that he wanted to gain over the 
Scottish Parliament, as he did in fact gain over, by presents 
and favors, many Scottish lords and men of power. Some 
think that he went to get proofs against the Parliamentary 
leaders in England of their having treasonably invited the 
Scottish people to come and help them. With whatever 
object he went to Scotland, he did little good b} T going. At 
the instigation of the Earl of Montrose, a desperate man 
who was then in prison for plotting, he tried to kidnap three 
Scottish lords who escaped. A committee of the Parliament 
at home, who had followed to watch him, writing an account 
of this Incident, as it was called, to the Parliament, the Par- 
liament made a fresh stir about it ; were, or feigned to be, 
much alarmed for themselves ; and wrote to the Earl op 
Essex, the commander-in-chief, for a guard to protect them. 

It is not absolutely proved that the King plotted in Ireland 
besides, but it is very probable that he did, and that the 
Queen did, and that he had some wild hope of gaining the 



390 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Irish people over to his side by favoring a rise among them. 
Whether or no, they did rise in a most brutal and savage 
rebellion ; in which, encouraged by their priests, they com- 
mitted such atrocities upon numbers of the English, of both 
sexes and of all ages, as nobody could believe, but for their 
being related on oath by eye-witnesses. Whether one hun- 
dred thousand or two hundred thousand Protestants were 
murdered in this outbreak, is uncertain ; but, that it was as 
ruthless and barbarous an outbreak as ever was known among 
an}' savage people, is certain. 

The King came home from Scotland, determined to make 
a great struggle for his lost power. He believed that, through 
his presents and favors, Scotland would take no part against 
him ; and the Lord Ma3 T or of London received him with such 
a magnificent dinner that he thought he must have become 
popular again in England. It would take a good many Lord 
Mayors, however, to make a people, and the King soon found 
himself mistaken. 

Not so soon, though, but that there was a great opposition 
in the Parliament to a celebrated paper put forth by P 4 ym and 
Hampden and the rest, called "The Remonstrance," which 
set forth all the illegal acts that the King had ever done, but 
politely laid the blame of them on his bad advisers. Even- 
when it was passed and presented to him, the King still 
thought himself strong enough to discharge Balfour from his 
command in the Tower, and to put in his place a man of bad 
character; to whom the Commons instantly objected, and 
whom he was obliged to abandon. At this time, the old out- 
cry about the Bishops became louder than ever, and the old 
Archbishop of York was so near being murdered as he went 
down to the House of Lords — being laid hold of by the 
mob and violently knocked about, in return for very foolishly 
scolding a shrill boy who was } T elping out " No Bishops ! " — 
that he sent for all the Bishops who were in town, and pro- 
posed to them to sign a declaration that, as they could no 
longer without danger to their lives attend their dut}^ in Par- 



CHARLES THE FIRST. 391 

liament, the}* protested against the lawfulness of everything 
done in their absence. This they asked the King to send to 
the House of Lords, which he did. Then the House of Com- 
mons impeached the whole party of Bishops and sent them 
off to the Tower. 

Taking no warning from this ; but encouraged by there be- 
ing a moderate party in the Parliament who objected to these 
strong measures, the King, on the third of January, one thou- 
sand six hundred and forty-two, took the rashest step that 
ever was taken by mortal man. 

Of his own accord and without advice, he sent the Attorney- 
General to the House of Lords, to accuse of treason certain 
members of Parliament who as popular leaders were the most 
obnoxious to fiim ; Lord Kimbolton, Sir Arthur Haselrig, 
Denzil Hollis, John Pym (the}^ used to call him King P}'m, 
he possessed such power and looked so big) , John Hampden, 
and William Strode. The houses of those members he 
caused to be entered, and their papers to be sealed up. At 
the same time he sent a messenger to the House of Commons 
demanding to have the five gentlemen who were members of 
that House immediatery produced. To this the House replied 
that they should appear as soon as there was any legal charge 
against them, and immediately adjourned. 

Next daj T , the House of Commons send into the City to let 
the Lord Mayor know that their privileges are invaded b} r the 
King, and that there is no safety for anj'body or anything. 
Then, when the five members are gone out of the way, clown 
comes the King himself, with all his guard and from two to 
three hundred gentlemen and soldiers, of whom the greater 
part were armed. These he leaves in the hall ; and then, 
with his nephew at his side, goes into the House, takes off his 
hat, and walks up to the Speaker's chair. The Speaker 
leaves it, the King stands in front of it, looks about him 
steadily for a little while, and says he has come for those five 
members. No one speaks, and then he calls John Pym by 
name. No one speaks, and then he calls Denzil Hollis by 



392 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

name. No one speaks, and then he asks the Speaker of the 
House where those five members are ? The Speaker, answer- 
ing on his knee, nobly replies that he is the servant of that 
House, and that he has neither eyes to see, nor tongue to 
speak, anything but what the House commands him. Upon 
this, the King, beaten from that time evermore, replies that 
he will seek them himself, for they have committed treason ; 
and goes out, with his hat in his hand, amid some audible 
murmurs from the members. 

No words can describe the hurry that arose out of doors 
when all this was known. The five members had gone for 
safety to a house in Coleman Street, in the City, where they 
were guarded all night ; and indeed the whole city watched in 
arms like an army. At ten o'clock in the morning, the King 
already frightened at what he had done, came to the Guild- 
hall, with only half a dozen lords, and made a speech to the 
people, hoping they would not shelter those whom he accused 
of treason. Next day, he issued a proclamation for the ap- 
prehension of the five members ; but the Parliament minded 
it so little that they made great arrangements for having 
them brought down to Westminster in great state, five days 
afterwards. The King was so alarmed now at his own im- 
prudence, if not for his own safety, that he left his palace at 
Whitehall, and went away with his Queen and children to 
Hampton Court. 

It was the eleventh of May, when the five members were 
carried in state and triumph to Westminster. They were 
taken by water. The river could not be seen for the boats 
on it ; and the five members were hemmed in by barges full 
of men and great guns, ready to protect them, at airy cost. 
Along the Strand a large body of the train-bands of London, 
under their commander, Skippon, marched to be ready to as- 
sist the little fleet. Beyond them came a crowd who choked 
the streets, roaring incessantly about the Bishops, and the 
Papists, and crying out con temp tuously as the} T passed White- 
hall, "What has become of the King?" With this great 



CHARLES THE FIRST. 393 

noise outside the House of Commons, and with great silence 
within, Mr. Pj T m rose and informed the House of the great 
kindness with which they had been received in the City. 
Upon that, the House called the sheriffs in and thanked them, 
and requested the train-bands, under their commander Skip- 
pon, to guard the House of Commons every day. Then, 
came four thousand men on horseback out of Buckingham- 
shire, offering their services as a guard too, and bearing a 
petition to the King, complaining of the injury that had been 
done to Mr. Hampden, who was their county man and much 
beloved and honored. 

When the King set off for Hampton Court, the gentlemen 
and soldiers who had been with him followed him out of town 
as far as Kingston-upon-Thames ; next day, Lord Digby 
came to them from the King at Hampton Court, in his coach 
and six, to inform them that the King accepted their protec- 
tion. This, the Parliament said, was making war against the 
kingdom, and Lord Digb} r fled abroad. The Parliament then 
immediately applied themselves to getting hold of the mili- 
taiy power of the country, well knowing that the King was 
alread}' trying hard to use it against them, and that he had 
secretly sent the Earl of Newcastle to Hull, to secure a valu- 
able magazine of arms and gunpowder that was there. In 
those times, every county had its own magazines of arms and 
powder, for its own train-bands or militia ; so the Parliament 
brought in a bill claiming the right (which up to this time had 
belonged to the King) of appointing the Lord Lieutenants of 
counties, who commanded these train-bands ; also, of having 
all the forts, castles, and garrisons in the kingdom, put into 
the hands of such governors as they, the Parliament, could 
confide in. It also passed a law depriving the Bishops of 
their votes. The King gave his assent to that bill, but would 
not abandon the right of appointing the Lord Lieutenants, 
though he said he was willing to appoint such as might be 
suggested to him by the Parliament. When the Earl of 
Pembroke asked him whether he would not give way on that 



394 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

question for a time, he said, " By God ! not for one hour ! " 
and upon this he and the Parliament went to war. 

His young daughter was betrothed to the Prince of Orange. 
On pretence of taking her to the country of her future hus- 
band, the Queen was already got safely away to Holland, 
there to pawn the Crown jewels for money to raise an army 
on the King's side. The Lord Admiral being sick, the House 
of Commons now named the Earl of Warwick to hold his 
place for a year. The King named another gentleman ; the 
House of Commons took its own way, and the Earl of War- 
wick became Lord Admiral without the King's consent. The 
Parliament sent orders down to Hull to have that magazine 
removed to London ; the King went down to Hull to take it 
himself. The citizens would not admit him into the town, 
and the governor would not admit him into the castle. The 
Parliament resolved that whatever the two Houses passed, 
and the King would not consent to, should be called an Or- 
dinance, and should be as much a law as if he did consent 
to it. The King protested against this, and gave notice that 
these ordinances were not to be obeyed. The King, attended 
by the majority of the House of Peers, and by man}* members 
of the House of Commons, established himself at York. The 
Chancellor went to him with the Great Seal, and the Parlia- 
ment made a new Great Seal. The Queen sent over a ship 
full of arms and ammunition, and the King issued letters to 
borrow money at high interest. The Parliament raised twent}^ 
regiments of foot and sevent3 T -five troops of horse ; and the 
people willingly aided them with their money, plate, jewehy, 
and trinkets — the married women even with their wedding- 
rings. Every member of Parliament who could raise a troop 
or a regiment in his own part of the country, dressed it ac- 
cording to his taste and in his own colors, and commanded it. 
Foremost among them all, Oliver Cromwell raised a troop 
of horse — thoroughly in earnest and thoroughly well armed — 
who were, perhaps, the best soldiers that ever were seen. 

In some of their proceedings, this famous Parliament passed 



CHARLES THE FIRST. 395 

the bounds of previous law and custom, yielded to and fa- 
vored riotous assemblages of the people, and acted tyranni- 
cally in imprisoning some who differed from the popular 
leaders. But again, you are always to remember that the 
twelve j^ears during which the King had had his own wilful 
way, had gone before ; and that nothing could make the 
times what they might, could, would, or should have been, if 
those twelve years had never rolled away. 



Third Part. 

I shall not try to relate the particulars of the great civil war 
between King Charles the First and the Long Parliament, 
which lasted nearly four years, and a full account of which 
would fill many large books. It was a sad thing that 
Englishmen should once more be fighting against Englishmen 
on English ground ; but, it is some consolation to know that 
on both sides there was great humanity, forbearance, and 
honor. The soldiers of the Parliament were far more remark- 
able for these good qualities than the soldiers of the King 
(many of whom fought for mere pay without much caring for 
the cause) ; but those of the nobility and gentry who were on 
the King's side were so brave, and so faithful to him, that 
their conduct cannot but command our highest admiration. 
Among them were great numbers of Catholics, who took the 
royal side because the Queen was so strongly of their persua- 
sion. 

The King might have distinguished some of these gallant 
spirits, if he had been as generous a spirit himself, b} T giving 
them the command of his army. Instead of that, however, 
true to his old high notions of ro} T alt3 x , he entrusted it to his 
two nephews, Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice, who 
were of royal blood and came over from abroad to help him. 
It might have been better for him if they had stayed away ; 



396 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

since Prince Rupert was an impetuous hot-headed fellow, 
whose only idea was to clash into battle at all times and sea- 
sons, and lay about him. 

The general-in-chief of the Parliamentary army was the 
Earl of Essex, a gentleman of honor and an excellent soldier. 
A little while before the war broke out, there had been some 
rioting at Westminster between certain officious law students 
and noisy soldiers, and the shopkeepers and their apprentices, 
and the general people in the streets. At that time the King's 
friends called the crowd, Roundheads, because the apprentices 
wore short hair ; the crowd, in return, called their opponents 
Cavaliers, meaning that the} T were a blustering set, who pre- 
tended to be ver} r military. These two words now began to 
be used to distinguish the two sides in the civil war. The 
Royalists also called the Parliamentary men Rebels and 
Rogues, while the Parliamentary men called them Malignants 
and spoke of themselves as the Godly, the Honest, and so 
forth. 

The war broke out at Portsmouth, where that double traitor 
Goring had again gone over to the King and was besieged by 
the Parliamentary troops. Upon this, the King proclaimed 
the Earl of Essex and the officers serving under him, traitors, 
and called upon his lo} r al subjects to meet him in arms at 
Nottingham on the twenty-fifth of August. But his loyal 
subjects came about him in scantj T numbers, and it was a 
windy gloomy da} T , and the Royal Standard got blown down, 
and the whole affair was very melancholy. The chief engage- 
ments after this, took place in the vale of the Red Horse near 
Banbuiy, at Brentford, at Devizes, at Chalgrave Field (where 
Mr. Hampden was so sorely wounded while fighting at the 
head of his men, that he died within a week) , at Newbury 
(in which battle Lord Falkland, one of the best noblemen 
on the King's side, was killed), at Leicester, at Naseby, at 
Winchester, at Marston Moor near York, at Newcastle, and 
in mairy other parts of England and Scotland. These battles 
were attended with various successes. At one time, the King 



CHARLES THE FIRST. 397 

was victorious ; at another time, the Parliament. But almost 
all the great and bus} T towns were against the King ; and when 
it was considered necessary to fortif}' London, all ranks of 
people, from laboring men and women, up to lords and ladies, 
worked hard together with heartiness and good will. The 
most distinguished leaders on the Parliamentary side were 
Hampden, Sir Thomas Fairfax, and above all, Oliver Crom- 
well, and his son-in-law Ireton. 

During the whole of this war, the people, to whom it was 
very expensive and irksome, and to whom it was made the 
more distressing b} r almost eveiy family being divided — some 
of its members attaching themselves to one side and some to 
the other — were over and over again most anxious for peace. 
So were some of the best men in each cause. Accordingly, 
treaties of peace were discussed between commissioners from 
the Parliament and the King ; at York, at Oxford (where the 
King held a little Parliament of his own), and at Uxbridge. 
But the}' came to nothing. In all these negotiations, and in 
all his difficulties, the King showed himself at his best. He 
was courageous, cool, self-possessed, and clever ; but, the old 
taint of his character was always in" him, and he was never 
for one single moment to be trusted. Lord Clarendon, the 
historian, one of his highest admirers, supposes that he had 
unhappily promised the Queen never to make peace without 
her consent, and that this must often be taken as his excuse. 
He never kept his word from night to morning. He signed a 
cessation of hostilities with the blood-stained Irish rebels for a 
sum of mone3 T , and invited the Irish regiments over, to help 
him against the Parliament. In the battle of Naseb}*, his cab- 
inet was seized and was found to contain a correspondence 
with the Queen, in which he expressly told her that he had 
deceived the Parliament — a mongrel Parliament, he called it 
now, as an improvement on his old term of vipers — in pre- 
tending to recognize it and to treat with it ; and from which it 
further appeared that he had long been in secret treaty with 
the Duke of Lorraine for a foreign army of ten thousand 



398 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

men. Disappointed in this, he sent a most devoted friend of 
his, the Earl of Glamorgan, to Ireland, to conclude a secret 
treaty with the Catholic powers, to send him an Irish army of 
ten thousand men ; in return for which he was to bestow 
great favors on the Catholic religion. And, when this treaty 
who discovered in the carriage of a fighting Irish Archbishop 
who was killed in one of the many skirmishes of those days, 
he basely denied and deserted his attached friend, the Earl, on 
his being charged with high treason ; and — even worse than 
this — had left blanks in the secret instructions he gave him 
with his own kingly hand, expressly that he might thus save 
himself. 

At last, on the twenty-seventh day of April, one thousand 
six hundred and fort3 T -six, the King found himself in the city 
of Oxford, so surrounded by the Parliamentary army who 
were closing in upon him on all sides that he felt that if he 
would escape he must delay no longer. So, that night, hav- 
ing altered the cut of his hair and beard, he was dressed up 
as a servant and put upon a horse with a cloak strapped be- 
hind him, and rode out of the town behind one of his own 
faithful followers, with a clergyman of that country who knew 
the road well, for a guide. He rode towards London as far 
as Harrow, and then altered his plans and resolved, it would 
seem, to go to the Scottish camp. The Scottish men had 
been invited over to help the Parliamentary army, and had a 
large force then in England. The King was so desperately 
intriguing in everything he did, that it is doubtful what he ex- 
actly meant b} T this step. He took it, anyhow, and delivered 
himself up to the Earl of Leven, the Scottish general-in- 
chief, who treated him as an honorable prisoner. Negoti- 
ations between the Parliament on the one hand and the 
Scottish authorities on the other, as to what should be done 
with him, lasted until the following February. Then, when 
the King had refused to the Parliament the concession of 
that old militia point for twenty years, and had refused to 
Scotland the recognition of its Solemn League and Covenant, 



CHARLES THE FIRST. 399 

Scotland got a handsome sum for its army and its help, 
and the King into the bargain. He was taken, by certain 
Parliamentaiy commissioners appointed to receive him, to 
one of his own houses, called Holmby House, near Al- 
thorpe, in Northamptonshire. 

While the Civil War was still in progress, John Pym died, 
and was buried in great honor in Westminster Abbey — not 
with greater honor than he deserved, for the liberties of Eng- 
lishmen owe a might} T debt to P} T m and Hampden. The war 
was but newly over when the Earl of Essex died, of an illness 
brought on by his having overheated himself in a stag hunt 
in Windsor Forest. He, too, was buried in Westminster 
Abbe} T , with great state. I wish it were not necessaiy to 
adc} that Archbishop Laud died upon the scaffold when the 
war was not yet done. His trial lasted in all nearly a } T ear, 
and, it being doubtful even then whether the charges brought 
against him amounted to treason, the odious old contrivance 
of the worst kings was resorted to, and a bill of attainder 
was brought in against him. He was a violently prejudiced 
and mischievous person ; had had strong ear-cropping and 
nose-splitting propensities, as } r ou know ; and had done a 
world of harm. But he died peaceably, and like a brave 
old man. 



Fourth Part. 

When the Parliament had got the King into their hands, 
they became very anxious to get rid of their army, in which 
Oliver Cromwell had begun to acquire great power ; not only 
because of his courage and high abilities, but because he pro- 
fessed to be very sincere in the Scottish sort of Puritan 
religion that was then exceedingly popular among the soldiers. 
The}*- were as much opposed to the Bishops as to the Pope 
himself; and the ver} T privates, drummers, and trumpeters, 
had such an inconvenient habit of starting up and preaching 



400 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

long-winded discourses, that I would not have belonged to 
that arm} r on any account. 

So, the Parliament, being far from sure but that the army 
might begin to preach and fight against them now it had 
nothing else to do, proposed to disband the greater part of it, 
to send another part to serve in Ireland against the rebels, 
and to keep only a small force in England. But, the army 
would not consent to be broken up, except upon its own con- 
ditions ; and, when the Parliament showed an intention of 
compelling it, it acted for itself in an unexpected manner. 
A certain cornet, of the name of Joice, arrived at Holmby 
House one night, attended by four hundred horsemen, went 
into the King's room with his hat in one hand and a pistol in 
the other, and told the King that he had come to take him 
away. The King was willing enough to go, and only stipu- 
lated that he should be publicly required to do so next morn- 
ing. Next morning, according^, he appeared on the top of 
the steps of the house, and asked Cornet Joice before his men 
and the guard set there by the Parliament, what authorit}' he 
had for taking him away ? To this Cornet Joice replied, 
"The authority of the army." "Have you a written com- 
mission?" said the King. Joice, pointing to his four hun- 
dred men on horseback, replied, "That is my commission." 
" Well," said the King, smiling, as if he were pleased, " I 
never before read such a commission ; but it is written 
in fair and legible characters. This is a company of as 
handsome proper gentlemen as I have seen a long while." 
He was asked where he would like to live, and he said at 
Newmarket. So, to Newmarket he and Cornet Joice and the 
four hundred horsemen rode ; the King remarking, in the 
same smiling way, that he could ride as far at a spell as Cor- 
net Joice, or an} r man there. 

The King quite believed, I think, that the army were his 
friends. He said as much to Fairfax when that General, 
Oliver Cromwell, and Ireton, went to persuade him to return 
to the custody of the Parliament. He preferred to remain as 



CHARLES THE FIRST. 401 

he was, and resolved to remain as he was. And when the 
army moved nearer and nearer London to frighten the Parlia- 
ment into yielding to their demands, the} T took the King with 
them. It was a deplorable thing that England should be at 
the mere} 7 of a great body of soldiers with arms in their 
hands ; but the King certainty favored them at this important 
time of his life, as compared with the more lawful power that 
tried to control him. It must be added, however, that they 
treated him, as } r et, more respectfully and kindly than the 
Parliament had done. They allowed him to be attended by 
his own servants, to be splendidly entertained at various 
houses, and to see his children — at Cavesham House, near 
Reading — for two days. Whereas, the Parliament had been 
rather, hard with him, and had only allowed him to ride out 
and play at bowls. 

It is much to be believed that if the King could have been 
trusted, even at this time, he might have been saved. Even 
Oliver Cromwell expressly said that he did believe that no 
man could enjoy his possessions in peace, unless the King 
had his rights. He was not unfriendly towards the King ; 
he had been present when he received his children, and had 
been much affected b} r the pitiable nature of the scene ; he 
saw the King often ; he frequently walked and talked with 
him in the long galleries and pleasant gardens of the Palace 
at Hampton Court, whither he was now removed ; and in all 
this risked something of his influence with the arm}'. But, 
the King was in secret hopes of help from the Scottish 
people ; and the moment he was encouraged to join them he 
began to be cool to his new friends, the army, and to tell the 
officers that the}' could not possibly do without him. At the 
very time, too, when he was promising to make Cromwell 
and Ireton noblemen, if they would help him up to his old 
height, he was writing to the Queen that he meant to hang 
them. They both afterwards declared that they had been 
privately informed that such a letter would be found, on a 
certain evening, sewed up in a saddle which would be taken 

26 



402 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

to the Bine Boar in Holborn to be sent to Dover ; and that 
they went there, disguised as common soldiers, and sat drink- 
ing in the inn-yard until a man came with the saddle, which 
they ripped up with their knives, and therein found the letter. 
I see little reason to doubt the story. It is certain that Oli- 
ver Cromwell told one of the King's most faithful followers 
that the King could not be trusted, and that he would not be 
answerable if anything amiss were to happen to him. Still, 
even after that, he kept a promise he had made to the King, 
by letting him know that there was a plot with a certain por- 
tion of the army to sei^e him. I believe that, in fact, he 
sincerely wanted the King to escape abroad, and so to be got 
rid of without more trouble or danger. That Oliver himself 
had work enough with the army is pretty plain ; for some of 
the troops were so mutinous against him, and against those 
wiio acted with him at this time, that he found it necessary 
to have one man shot at the head of his regiment to overawe 
the rest. 

The King, when he received Oliver's warning, made his 
escape from Hampton Court ; after some indecision and un- 
certainty, he went to Carisbrooke Castle in the Isle of Wight. 
At first he was pretty free there ; but, even there, he carried 
on a pretended treaty with the Parliament, while he was 
really treating with commissioners from Scotland to send an 
army into England to take his part. When he broke off 
this treaty with the Parliament (having settled with Scot- 
land) and was treated as a prisoner, his treatment was not 
changed too soon, for he had plotted to escape that very 
night to a ship sent by the Queen, which was lying off the 
island. 

He was doomed to be disappointed in his hopes from Scot- 
land. The agreement he had made with the Scottish Com- 
missioners was not favorable enough to the religion of that 
country to please the Scottish clergy; and they preached 
against it. The consequence was, that the army raised in 
Scotland and sent over, was too small to do much ; and that, 



CHARLES THE FIRST. 403 

although it was helped by a rising of the Royalists in England 
and by good soldiers from Ireland, it could make no head 
against the Parliamentary aravy under such men as Cromwell 
and Fairfax. The King's eldest son, the Prince of Wales, 
came over from Holland with nineteen ships (a part of the 
English fleet having gone over to him) to help his father ; 
but nothing came of his voyage, and he was fain to return. 
The most remarkable event of this second civil war was the 
cruel execution by the Parliamentary General, of Sir Charles 
Lucas and Sir George Lisle, two grand Royalist generals, 
who had bravely defended Colchester under every disadvan- 
tage of famine and distress for nearly three months. When 
Sir Charles Lucas was shot, Sir George Lisle kissed his body, 
ancl said to the soldiers who were to shoot him, " Come nearer, 
and make sure of me." "I warrant you, Sir George," said 
one of the soldiers, " we shall hit } T ou." " Ay? " he returned 
with a smile, "but I have been nearer to you, my friends, 
many a time, and you have missed me." 

The Parliament, after being fearfully bullied by the army — 
who demanded to have seven members whom they disliked 
given up to them — had voted that they would have nothing 
more to do with the King. On the conclusion, however, of 
this second civil war (which did not last more than six 
months), the} r appointed commissioners to treat with him. 
The King, then so far released again as to be allowed to live 
in a private house at Newport in the Isle of Wight, managed 
his own part of the negotiation with a sense that was admired 
b}' all who saw him, and gave up, in the end, all that was 
asked of him — even 3'ielding (which he had steadily refused, 
so far) to the temporaiy abolition of the bishops, and the 
transfer of their church land to the Crown. Still, with his old 
fatal vice upon him, when his best friends joined the commis- 
sioners in beseeching him to yield all those points as the only 
means of saving himself from the army, he was plotting to 
escape from the island ; he was holding correspondence with 
his friends and the Catholics in Ireland, though declaring that 



404 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

he was not ; and he was writing, with his own hand, that in 
what he yielded he meant nothing but to get time to escape. 

Matters were at this pass when the army, resolved to defy 
the Parliament, marched up to London. The Parliament, 
not afraid of them now, and boldly led by Hollis, voted that 
the King's concessions were sufficient ground for settling the 
peace of the kingdom. Upon that, Colonel Rich and Col- 
onel Pride went down to the House of Commons with a 
regiment of horse soldiers and a regiment of foot ; and 
Colonel Pride, standing in the lobby with a list of the mem- 
bers who were obnoxious to the army in his hand, had them 
pointed out to him as they came through, and took them all into 
custody. This proceeding was afterwards called by the 
people, for a joke, Pride's Purge. Cromwell was in the 
North, at the head of his men, at the time, but when he 
came home, approA r ed of what had been done. 

What with imprisoning some members and causing others 
to sta}^ away, the army had now reduced the House of Com- 
mons to some fifty or so. These soon voted that it was 
treason in a king to make war against his parliament and his 
people, and sent an ordinance up to the House of Lords for 
the King's being tried as a traitor. The House of Lords, 
then sixteen in number, to a man rejected it. Thereupon, 
the Commons made an ordinance of their own, that they were 
the supreme government of the countiy, and would bring the 
King to trial. 

The King had been taken for security to a place called 
Hurst Castle : a lonely house on a rock in the sea, connected 
with the coast of Hampshire by a rough road two miles 
long at low water. Thence, he was ordered to be removed 
to Windsor ; thence, after being but rudely used there, and 
having none but soldiers to wait upon him at table, he was 
brought up to St. James's Palace in London, and told that 
his trial was appointed for next day. 

On Saturday, the twentieth of Januaiy, one thousand six 
hundred and forty-nine, this memorable trial began. The 



CHARLES THE FIRST. 405 

House of Commons bad settled that one hundred and thirty- 
five persons should form the Court, and these were taken 
from the House itself, from among the officers of the army, 
and from among the law3'ers and citizens. John Bradshaw, 
serjeant-at-law, was appointed president. The place was 
Westminster Hall. At the upper end, in a red velvet chair, 
sat the president, with his hat (lined with plates of iron for 
his protection) on his head. The rest of the Court sat on 
side benches, also wearing their bats. The King's seat 
was covered with velvet, like that of the president, and 
was opposite to it. He was brought from St. James's 
to Whitehall, and from Whitehall he came by water to his 
trial. 

W/hen he came in, he looked round very steadily on the 
Court, and on the great number of spectators, and then sat 
down : presently he got up and looked round again. On the 
indictment " against Charles Stuart, for high treason," being 
read, he smiled several times, and he denied the authorhy of 
the Court, saying that there could be no parliament without 
a House of Lords, and that he saw no House of Lords there. 
Also, that the King ought to be there, and that he saw no 
King in the King's right place. Bradshaw replied, that the 
Court was satisfied with its authority, and that its authority 
was God's authority and the kingdom's. He then adjourned 
the Court to the following Monday. On that day, the trial 
was resumed, and went on all the week. When the Saturday 
came, as the King passed forward to his place in the Hall, 
some soldiers and others cried for "justice ! " and execution 
on him. That da}-, too, Bradshaw, like an angiy Sultan, 
wore a red robe, instead of the black robe he had worn before. 
The King was sentenced to death that day. As he went out, 
one solitaiy soldier said, "God bless 3-011, Sir!" For this, 
his officer struck him. The King said he thought the pun- 
ishment exceeded the offence. The silver head of his walk- 
ing-stick had fallen off while he leaned upon it, at one time of 
the trial. The accident seemed to disturb him, as if he 



406 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

thought it ominous of the falling of his own head ; and he 
admitted as much, now it was all over. 

Being taken back to Whitehall, he sent to the House of Com- 
mons, saying that as the time of his execution might be nigh, 
he wished he might be allowed to see his darling children. 
It was granted. On the Monday he was taken back to St. 
James's ; and his two children then in England, the Princess 
Elizabeth thirteen years old, and the Duke of Gloucester 
nine years old, were brought to take leave of him, from Sion 
House, near Brentford. It was a sad and touching scene, 
when he kissed and fondled those poor children, and made a 
little present of two diamond seals to the Princess, and gave 
them tender messages to their mother (who little deserved 
them, for she had a lover of her own whom she married soon 
afterwards) , and told them that he died ' ' for the laws and 
liberties of the land." I am bound to say that I don't think 
he did, but I dare say he believed so. 

There were ambassadors from Holland that day, to inter- 
cede for the unhappy King, whom you and I both wish the 
Parliament had spared ; but they got no answer. The Scot- 
tish Commissioners interceded too ; so did the Prince of 
Wales, by a letter in which he offered as the next heir to the 
throne, to accept any conditions from the Parliament ; so did 
the Queen, by letter likewise. Notwithstanding all, the war- 
rant for the execution was this day signed. There is a story 
that as Oliver Cromwell went to the table with the pen in his 
hand to put his signature to it, he drew his pen across the 
face of one of the commissioners, who was standing near, 
and marked it with ink. That commissioner had not signed 
his own name yet, and the story adds that when he came to 
do it he marked Cromwell's face with ink in the same way. 

The King slept well, untroubled by the knowledge that it 
was his last night on earth, and rose on the thirtieth of Jan- 
uary, two hours before day, and dressed himself carefully. 
He put on two shirts lest he should tremble with the cold, 
and had his hair very carefully combed. The warrant had 



CHARLES THE FIRST. 407 

been directed to three officers of the army, Colonel Hacker, 
Colonel Hunks, and Colonel Phayer. At ten o'clock, the 
first of these came to the door and said it was time to go to 
Whitehall. The King, who had alwa} T s been a quick walker, 
walked at his usual speed through the Park, and called out 
to the guard, with his accustomed voice of command, " March 
on apace ! " When he came to Whitehall, he was taken to 
his own bedroom, where a breakfast was set forth. As he 
had taken the Sacrament, he would eat nothing more ; but, 
at about the time when the church bells struck twelve at noon 
(for he had to wait through the scaffold not being ready) , he 
took the advice of the good Bishop Juxon who was with him, 
and ate a little bread and drank a glass of claret. Soon 
after he had taken this refreshment, Colonel Hacker came to 
the chamber with the warrant in his hand, and called for 
Charles Stuart. 

And then, through the long gallery of Whitehall Palace, 
which he had often seen light and ga} T and merry and crowded, 
in veiy different times, the fallen King passed along, until he 
came to the centre window of the Banqueting House, through 
which he emerged upon the scaffold, which was hung with 
black. He looked at the two executioners, who were dressed 
in black and masked ; he looked at the troops of soldiers on 
horseback and on foot, and all looked up at him in silence ; 
he looked at the vast array of spectators, filling up the view 
beyond, and turning all their faces upon him ; he looked at 
his old Palace of St. James's ; and he looked at the block. 
He seemed a little troubled to find that it was so low, and 
asked, "if there were no place higher?" Then, to those 
upon the scaffold, he said "that it was the Parliament who 
had begun the war, and not he ; but he hoped they might be 
guiltless too, as ill instruments had gone between them. In 
one respect," he said, " he suffered justly ; and that was be- 
cause he had permitted an unjust sentence to be executed on 
another." In this he referred to the Earl of Strafford. 

He was not at all afraid to die ; but he was anxious to die 



408 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

easily. When some one touched the axe while he was speak- 
ing, he broke off and called out, " Take heed of the axe! 
take heed of the axe ! " He also said to Colonel Hacker, 
" Take care that they do not put me to pain." He told the 
executioner, "I shall say but very short prayers, and then 
thrust out my hands " — as the sign to strike. 

He put his hair up, under a white satin cap which the 
bishop had carried, and said, " I have a good cause and a 
gracious God on my side." The bishop told him that he had 
but one stage more to travel in this weary world, and that, 
though it was a turbulent and troublesome stage, it was a 
short one, and would carry him a great way — all the way 
from earth to Heaven. The King's last word, as he gave his 
cloak and the George — the decoration from his breast — to 
the bishop, was, "Remember! " He then kneeled down, 
laid his head on the block, spread out his hands, and was in- 
stantly killed. One universal groan broke from the crowd ; 
and the soldiers, who had sat on their horses and stood in 
their ranks immovable as statues, were of a sudden all in 
motion, clearing the streets. 

Thus, in the forty-ninth year of his age, falling at the same 
time of his career as Strafford had fallen in his, perished 
Charles the First. With all my sorrow for him, I cannot agree 
with him that he died " the martyr of the people ; " for the 
people had been martyrs to him, and to his ideas of a King's 
rights, long before. Indeed, I am afraid that he was but a 
bad judge of martyrs ; for he had called that infamous Duke 
of Buckingham " the Martyr of his Sovereign." 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 409 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

ENGLAND UNDER OLIVER CROMWELL. 

Before sunset on the memorable day on which King 
Charles the First was executed, the House of Commons 
passed an act declaring it treason in any one to proclaim the 
Prince of Wales — or an}body else — King of England. 
Soon afterwards, it declared that the House of Lords was 
useless and dangerous, and ought to be abolished ; and di- 
rected that the late King's statue should be taken down from 
the Royal Exchange in the City and other public places. 
Having laid hold of some famous Royalists who had escaped 
from prison, and having beheaded the Duke of Hamilton, 
Lord Holland, and Lord Capel, in Palace Yard (all of 
whom died very courageously) , they then appointed a Coun- 
cil of State to govern the country. It consisted of forty-one 
members, of whom five were peers. Bradshaw was made 
president. The House of Commons also re-admitted mem- 
bers who had opposed the King's death, and made up its 
numbers to about a hundred and fifty. 

But, it still had an army of more than forty thousand men 
to deal with, and a very hard task it was to manage them. 
Before the King's execution, the army had appointed some of 
its officers to remonstrate between them and the Parliament ; 
and now the common soldiers began to take that office upon 
themselves. The regiments under orders for Ireland muti- 
nied ; one troop of horse in the city of London seized their 
own flag, and refused to obe} T orders. For this, the ring- 
leader was shot : which did not mend the matter, for, both 
his comrades and the people made a public funeral for him, 



410 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

and accompanied the bod}' to the grave with sound of trum- 
pets and with a gloonry procession of persons carrying bun- 
dles of rosemarjr steeped in blood. Oliver was the only man 
to deal with such difficulties as these, and he soon cut them 
short b} T bursting at midnight into the town of Burford, near 
Salisbury, where the mutineers were sheltered, taking four 
hundred of them prisoners, and shooting a number of them 
b} T sentence of court-martial. The soldiers soon found, as 
all men did, that Oliver was not a man to be trifled with. 
And there was an end of the mutiny. 

The Scottish Parliament did not know Oliver yet ; so, on 
hearing of the King's execution, it proclaimed the Prince of 
Wales King Charles the Second, on condition of his respect- 
ing the Solemn League and Covenant. Charles was abroad 
at that time, and so was Montrose, from whose help he had 
hopes enough to keep him holding on and off with com- 
missioners from Scotland, just as his father might have done. 
These hopes were soon at an end ; for, Montrose, having 
raised a few hundred exiles in Germany, and landed with 
them in Scotland, found that the people there, instead of 
joining him, deserted the country at his approach. He was 
soon taken prisoner and carried to Edinburgh. There he 
was received with every possible insult, and carried to prison 
in a cart, his officers going two and two before him. He 
was sentenced by the Parliament to be hanged on a gallows 
thirty feet high, to have his head set on a spike in Edinburgh, 
and his limbs distributed in other places, according to the old 
barbarous manner. He said he had always acted under the 
Royal orders, and only wished he had limbs enough to be 
distributed through Christendom, that it might be the more 
widely known how lo3*al he had been. He went to the scaf- 
fold in a bright and brilliant dress, and made a bold end at 
thirty-eight years of age. The breath was scarcely out of 
his body when Charles abandoned his memory, and denied 
that he had ever given him orders to rise in his behalf. O 
the family failing was strong in that Charles then ! 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 411 

Oliver had been appointed by the Parliament to command 
the arm}- in Ireland, where he took a terrible vengeance for 
the sanguinary rebellion, and made tremendous havoc, par- 
ticularly in the siege of Drogheda, where no quarter was 
given, and where he found at least a thousand of the inhabi- 
tants shut up together in the great church : every one of 
whom was killed by his soldiers, usually known as Oliver's 
Ironsides. There were numbers of friars and priests among 
them, and Oliver gruffly wrote home in his despatch that 
these were ' ' knocked on the head " like the rest. 

But, Charles having got over to Scotland where the men 
of the Solemn League and Covenant led him a prodigiously 
dull life and made him very weary with long sermons and 
grini Sundays, the Parliament called the redoubtable Oliver 
home to knock the Scottish men on the head for setting up 
that Prince. Oliver left his son-in-law, Ireton, as general in 
Ireland in his stead (he died there afterwards) , and he imi- 
tated the example of his father-in-law with such good will 
that he brought the country to subjection, and laid it at the 
feet of the Parliament. In the end, they passed an act for 
the settlement of Ireland, generalty pardoning all the com- 
mon people, but exempting from this grace such of the 
wealthier sort as had been concerned in the rebellion, or in any 
killing of Protestants, or who refused to lay down their arms. 
Great numbers of Irish were got out of the countiy to serve 
under Catholic powers abroad, and a quantit} 7 of land was 
declared to have been forfeited b}^ past offences, and was 
given to people who had lent money to the Parliament early 
in the war. These were sweeping measures ; but, if Oliver 
Cromwell had had his own way fully, and had stayed in Ire- 
land, he would have done more yet. 

However, as I have said, the Parliament wanted Oliver for 
Scotland ; so, home Oliver came, and was made commander 
of all the Forces of the Commonwealth of England, and in 
three da}-s away he went with sixteen thousand soldiers to 
fight the Scottish men. Now, the Scottish men, being then 



412 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

— as you will generally find them now — mighty cautious, 
reflected that the troops they had, were not used to war like 
the Ironsides, and would be beaten in an open fight. There- 
fore they said, "If we lie quiet in our trenches in Edinburgh 
here, and if all the farmers come into the town and desert the 
country, the Ironsides will be driven out by iron hunger and 
be forced to go away." This was, no doubt, the wisest plan ; 
but as the Scottish clergy would interfere with what they 
knew nothing about, and would perpetually preach long ser- 
mons exhorting the soldiers to come out and fight, the sol- 
diers got it in their heads that the}^ absolutely must come out 
and fight. Accordingly, in an evil hour for themselves, they 
came out of their safe position. Oliver fell upon them in- 
stantly, and killed three thousand, and took ten thousand 
prisoners. 

To gratify the Scottish Parliament, and preserve their 
favor, Charles had signed a declaration they laid before him, 
reproaching the memory of his father and mother, and repre- 
senting himself as a most religious Prince, to whom the Sol- 
emn League and Covenant was as dear as life. He meant 
no sort of truth in this, and soon afterwards galloped away 
on horseback to join some tiresome Highland friends, who 
were always flourishing dirks and broadswords. He was 
overtaken and induced to return ; but this attempt, which 
was called "The Start," did him just so much service, that 
they did not preach quite such long sermons at him afterwards 
as they had done before. 

On the first of January, one thousand six hundred and 
fifty-one, the Scottish people crowned him at Scone. He im- 
mediately took the chief command of an army of twent}^ 
thousand men, and marched to Stirling. His hopes were 
heightened, I dare sa}^, by the redoubtable Oliver being ill of 
an ague ; but Oliver scrambled out of bed in no time, and 
went to work with such energy that he got behind the Royal- 
ist army and cut ifc off from all communication with Scotland. 
There was nothing for it then, but to go on to England ; so it 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 413 

went on as far as Worcester, where the maj'or t and some of 
the gentiy proclaimed King Charles the Second straightway. 
His proclamation, however, was of little use to him, for very 
few Royalists appeared ; and, on the very same day, two 
people were publicly beheaded on Tower Hill for espousing 
his cause. Up came Oliver to Worcester too, at double 
quick speed, and he and his Ironsides so laid about them in 
the great battle which was fought there, that they completely 
beat the Scottish men, and destroyed the Royalist army ; 
though the Scottish men fought so gallantly that it took five 
hours to do. 

The escape of Charles after this battle of Worcester did 
him good service long afterwards, for it induced many of the 
gei>erous English people to take a romantic interest in him, 
and to think much better of him than he ever deserved. He 
fled in the night, with not more than sixty followers, to the 
house of a Catholic lady in Staffordshire. There, for his 
greater safety, the whole sixty left him. He cropped his 
hair, stained his face and hands brown as if the}*- were sun- 
burnt, put on the clothes of a laboring countryman, and went 
out in the morning with his axe in his hand, accompanied by 
four wood-cutters who were brothers, and another man who 
was their brother-in-law. These good fellows made a bed 
for him under a tree, as the weather was veiy bad ; and the 
wife of one of them brought him food to eat ; and the old 
mother of the four brothers came and fell down on her knees 
before him in the wood, and thanked God that her sons were 
engaged in saving his life. At night, he came out of the 
forest and went on to another house which was near the river 
Severn, with the intention of passing into Wales ; but the 
place swarmed with soldiers, and the bridges were guarded, 
and all the boats were made fast. So, after lying in a hay- 
loft covered over with hay, for some time, he came out of 
his place, attended hy Colonel Careless, a Catholic gentle- 
man who had met him there, and with whom he la} r hid, all 
next day, up in the shady branches of a fine old oak. It 



414 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

was lucky for the King that it was September- time, and that 
the leaves had not begun to fall, since he and the Colonel, 
perched up in this tree, could catch glimpses of the soldiers 
riding about below, and could hear the crash in the wood as 
the}' went about beating the boughs. 

After this, he walked and walked until his feet were all 
blistered ; and, having been concealed all one day in a house 
which was searched by the troopers while he was there, went 
with Lord Wilmot, another of his good friends, to a place 
called Bentley, where one Miss Lane, a Protestant lady, had 
obtained a pass to be allowed to ride through the guards to 
see a relation of hers near Bristol. Disguised as a servant, 
he rode in the saddle before this young lady to the house of 
Sir John Winter, while Lord Wilmot rode there boldlr, like 
a plain county gentleman, with dogs at his heels. It hap- 
pened that Sir John Winter's butler had been servant in 
Richmond Palace, and knew Charles the moment he set e3'es 
upon him ; but, the butler was faithful and kept the secret. 
As no ship could be found to carry him abroad, it was 
planned that he should go — still travelling with Miss Lane 
as her servant — to another house, at Trent near Sherborne 
in Dorsetshire ; and then Miss Lane and her cousin, Mr. 
Lascelles, who had gone on horseback beside her all the 
way, went home. I hope Miss Lane was going to marry 
that cousin, for I am sure she must have been a brave kind 
girl. If I had been that cousin, I should certainly have loved 
Miss Lane. 

When Charles, lonely for the loss of Miss Lane, was safe 
at Trent, a ship was hired at L}ane, the master of which 
engaged to take two gentlemen to France. In the evening 
of the same day, the King — now riding as servant before 
another young lady — set off for a public-house at a place 
called Charmouth, where the captain of the vessel was to 
take him on board. But, the Captain's wife, being afraid of 
her husband getting into trouble, locked him up and would 
not let him sail. Then they went away to Bridport ; and, 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 415 

coming to the inn there, found the stable-yard full of soldiers 
who were on the look-out for Charles, and who talked about 
him while they drank. He had such presence of mind, that 
he led the horses of his party through the yard as any other 
servant might have done, and said, " Come out of the way, 
you soldiers ; let us have room to pass here ! " As he went 
along, he met a half-tipsy ostler, who rubbed his eyes and 
said to him, " Why, I was formerly servant to Mr. Potter at 
Exeter, and surely I have sometimes seen you there, young 
man?" He certainly had, for Charles had lodged there. 
His ready answer was, "Ah, I did live with him once ; but 
I have no time to talk now. We'll have a pot of beer to- 
gether when I come back." 

F/rom this dangerous place he returned to Trent, and lay 
there concealed several days. Then he escaped to Heale, 
near Salisbury ; where, in the house of a widow lady, he 
was hidden five days, until the master of a collier lying off 
Shoreham in Sussex, undertook to convey a "gentleman" 
to France. On the night of the fifteenth of October, accom- 
panied by two colonels and a merchant, the King rode to 
Brighton, then a little fishing village, to give the captain of 
the ship a supper before going on board ; but, so man} 7 peo- 
ple knew him, that this captain knew him too, and not only 
he, but the landlord and landlady also. Before he went 
away, the landlord came behind his chair, kissed his hand, and 
said he hoped to live to be a lord and to see his wife a lady ; 
at which Charles laughed. They had had a good supper 
by this time, and plentj 7 of smoking and drinking, at which 
the King was a first-rate hand, so, the captain assured him 
that he would stand by him, and he did. It was agreed that 
the captain should pretend to sail to Deal, and that Charles 
should address the sailors and say he was a gentleman in 
debt who was running away from his creditors, and that he 
hoped they would join him in persuading the captain to put 
him ashore in France. As the King acted his part very well 
indeed, and gave the sailors twenty shillings to drink, they 



416 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

begged the captain to do what such a worthy gentleman 
asked. He pretended to yield to their entreaties, and the 
King got safe to Normandy. 

Ireland being now subdued, and Scotland kept quiet by 
plenty of forts and soldiers put there by Oliver, the Parlia- 
ment would have gone on quietly enough, as far as fighting 
with any foreign enemy went, but for getting into trouble 
with the Dutch, who in the spring of the }'ear one thousand 
six hundred and fiftj'-one sent a fleet into the Downs under 
their Admiral Van Tromp, to call upon the bold English 
Admiral Blake (who was there with half as many ships as 
the Dutch) to strike his flag. Blake fired a raging broadside 
instead, and beat off Van Tromp ; who, in the autumn, came 
back again with seventy ships, and challenged the bold 
Blake — who still was only half as strong — to fight him. 
Blake fought him all day, but, finding that the Dutch were 
too many for him, got quietly off" at night. What does Van 
Tromp upon this, but goes cruising and boasting about the 
Channel, between the North Foreland and the Isle of Wight, 
with a great Dutch broom tied to his masthead, as a sign 
that he could and would sweep the English off the sea! 
Within three months, Blake lowered his tone though, and 
his broom too ; for, he and two other bold commanders, 
Dean and Monk, fought him three whole daj r s, took twenty- 
three of his ships, shivered his broom to pieces, and settled 
his business. 

Things were no sooner quiet again, than the army began to 
complain to the Parliament that the} r were not governing the 
nation properly, and to hint that they thought they could do 
it better themselves. Oliver, who had now made up his 
mind to be the head of the state, or nothing at all, supported 
them in this, and called a meeting of officers and his own 
Parliamentary friends, at his lodgings in Whitehall, to con- 
sider the best way of getting rid of the Parliament. It had 
now lasted just as many 3-ears as the King's unbridled power 
had lasted, before it came into existence. The end of the 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 417 

deliberation was, that Oliver went down to the House in his 
usual plain black dress, with his usual gray worsted stockings, 
but with an unusual part}' of soldiers behind him. These 
last he left in the lobby, and then went in and sat down. 
Presently he got up, made the Parliament a speech, told 
them that the Lord had done with them, stamped his foot and 
said, " You are no Parliament. Bring them in ! Bring them 
in ! " At this signal the door flew open, and the soldiers 
appeared. "This is not honest," said Sir Harry Vane, one 
of the members. " Sir Harry Vane ! " cried Cromwell ; " O, 
Sir Harry Vane ! The Lord deliver me from Sir Harry Vane ! " 
Then he pointed out members one by one, and said this man 
was a drunkard, and that man a dissipated fellow, and that 
ma^ a liar, and so on. Then he caused the speaker to be 
walked out of his chair, told the guard to clear the House, 
called the mace upon the table — which is a sign that the 
House is sitting — " a fool's bauble," and said, " here, carry 
it awaj r ! " Being obeyed in all these orders, he quietly locked 
the door, put the key in his pocket, walked back to Whitehall 
again, and told his friends, who were still assembled there, 
what he had done. 

The}' formed a new Council of State after this extraordinary 
proceeding, and got a new Parliament together in their own 
way : which Oliver himself opened in a sort of sermon, and 
which he said was the beginning of a perfect heaven upon 
earth. In this Parliament there sat a well known leather- 
seller, who had taken the singular name of Praise God Bare- 
bones, and from whom it was called, for a joke, Barebones's 
Parliament, though its general name was the Little Parlia- 
ment. As it soon appeared that it was not going to put 
Oliver in the first place, it turned out to be not at all like 
the beginning of heaven upon earth, and Oliver said it 
really was not to be borne with. So he cleared off that 
Parliament in much the same way as he had disposed of 
the other ; and then the council of officers decided that 
he must be made the supreme authority of the kingdom, 

27 



418 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

under the title of the Lord Protector of the Common- 
wealth. 

So, on the sixteenth of December, one thousand six hun- 
dred and fifty- three, a great procession was formed at Oliver's 
door, and he came out in a black velvet suit and a big pair of 
boots, and got into his coach and went down to Westminster, 
attended by the judges, and the lord mayor, and the alder- 
men, and all the other great and wonderful personages of 
the country. There, in the Court of Chancery, he publicly 
accepted the office of Lord Protector. Then he was sworn, 
and the City sword was handed to him, and the seal was 
handed to him, and all the other things were handed to him 
which are usually handed to Kings and Queens on state occa- 
sions. When Oliver had handed them all back, he was quite 
made and completely finished off as Lord Protector; and 
several of the Ironsides preached about it at great length, all 
the evening. 



Second Part. 

Oliver Cromwell — whom the people long called Old 
Noll — in accepting the office of Protector, had bound him- 
self by a certain paper which was handed to him, called " the 
Instrument," to summon a Parliament, consisting of between 
four and five hundred members, in the election of which 
neither the Royalists nor the Catholics were to have any share. 
He had also pledged himself that this Parliament should not 
be dissolved without its own consent until it had sat five 
months. 

When this Parliament met, Oliver made a speech to them 
of three hours long, very wisely advising them what to do for 
the credit and happiness of the countiy. To keep down the 
more violent members, he required them to sign a recognition 
of what they were forbidden by " the Instrument " to do; 
which was, chiefly, to take the power from one single person 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 419 

at the head of the state or to command the army. Then he 
dismissed them to go to work. With his usual vigor and 
resolution he went to work himself with some frantic preach- 
ers — who were rather overdoing their sermons in calling him 
a villain and a tyrant — by shutting up their chapels, and 
sending a few of them off to prison. 

There was not at that time, in England or anywhere else, 
a man so able to govern the country as Oliver Cromwell. 
Although he ruled with a strong hand, and levied a very 
heavy tax on the Royalists (but not until they had plotted 
against his life), he ruled wisely, and as the times required. 
He caused England to be so respected abroad, that I wish 
some lords and gentlemen who have governed it under kings 
and queens in later days would have taken a leaf out of 
Oliver Cromwell's book. He sent bold Admiral Blake to the 
Mediterranean Sea, to make the Duke of Tuscany pa}' sixty 
thousand pounds for injuries he had done to British subjects, 
and spoliation he had committed on English merchants. He 
further despatched him and his fleet to Algiers, Tunis, and 
Tripoli, to have every English ship and every English man 
delivered up to him that had been taken by pirates in those 
parts. All this was gloriously done ; and it began to be 
thoroughly well known, all over the world, that England was 
governed by a man in earnest, who would not allow the Eng- 
lish name to be insulted or slighted anywhere. 

These were not all his foreign triumphs. He sent a fleet 
to sea against the Dutch ; and the two powers, each with 
one hundred ships upon its side, met in the English Channel 
off the North Foreland, where the fight lasted all da} r long. 
Dean was killed in this fight ; but Monk, who commanded in 
the same ship with him, threw his cloak over his bod} T , that 
the sailors might not know of his death, and be disheartened. 
Nor were they. The English broadsides so exceedingly as- 
tonished the Dutch that the}' sheered off at last, though the 
redoubtable Van Tromp fired upon them with his own guns 
for deserting their flag. Soon afterwards, the two fleets en- 



420 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

gaged again, off the coast of Holland. There, the valiant 
Van Tromp was shot through the heart, and the Dutch gave 
in, and peace was made. 

Further than this, Oliver resolved not to bear the domineer- 
ing and bigoted conduct of Spain, which country not only 
claimed a right to all the gold and silver that could be found 
in South America, and treated the ships of all other countries 
who visited those regions, as pirates, but put English subjects 
into the horrible Spanish prisons of the Inquisition. So, 
Oliver told the Spanish ambassador that English ships must 
be free to go wherever they would, and that English merchants 
must not be thrown into those same dungeons, no, not for 
the pleasure of all the priests in Spain. To this, the Span- 
ish ambassador replied that the gold and silver countiy, and 
the Holy Inquisition, were his, King's two eyes, neither of 
which he could submit to have put out. Very well, said 
Oliver, then he was afraid he (Oliver) must damage those 
two eyes directly. 

So, another fleet was despatched under two commanders, 
Penn and Venables, for Hispaniola ; where, however, the 
Spaniards got the better of the fight. Consequently, the fleet 
came home again, after taking Jamaica on the way. Oliver, 
indignant with the two commanders who had not done what 
bold Admiral Blake would have done, clapped them both into 
prison, declared war against Spain, and made a treaty with 
France, in virtue of which it was to shelter the King and his 
brother the Duke of York no longer. Then, he sent a fleet 
abroad under bold Admiral Blake, which brought the King 
of Portugal to his senses — just to keep its hand in — and 
then engaged a Spanish fleet, sunk four great ships, and took 
two more, laden with silver to the value of two millions of 
pounds : which dazzling prize was brought from Portsmouth 
to London in wagons, with the populace of all the towns 
and villages through which the wagons passed, shouting with 
all their might. After this victory, bold Admiral Blake 
sailed away to the port of Santa Cruz to cut off the Spanish 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 421 

treasure-ships coming from Mexico. There, he found them, 
ten in number, with seven others to take care of them, and 
a big castle, and seven batteries, all roaring and blazing away 
at him with great guns. Blake cared no more for great guns 
than for pop-guns — no more for their hot iron balls than for 
snow-balls. He dashed into the harbor, captured and burnt 
every one of the ships, and came sailing out again triumph- 
antly, with the victorious English flag flying at his mast-head. 
This was the last triumph of this great commander, who had 
sailed and fought until he was quite worn out. He died, as 
his successful ship was coming into Plymouth Harbor amidst 
the joyful acclamations of the people, and was buried in state 
in Westminster Abbey. Not to lie there, long. 

Over and above all this, Oliver found that the Vaudois, or 
Protestant people of the valleys of Lucerne, were insolently 
treated by the Catholic powers, and were even put to death 
for their religion, in an audacious and bloody manner. In- 
stantly, he informed those powers that this was a thing which 
Protestant England would not allow ; and he speedily carried 
his point, through the might of his great name, and established 
their right to worship God in peace after their own harmless 
manner. 

Lastly, his English army won such admiration in fighting 
with the French against the Spaniards, that after the3 T had 
assaulted the town of Dunkirk together, the French King in 
person gave it up to the English, that it might be a token to 
them of their might and valor. 

There were plots enough against Oliver among the frantic 
religionists (who called themselves Fifth Monarchy Men) , and 
among the disappointed Republicans. He had a difficult game 
to play, for the Royalists were always ready to side with 
either party against him. The " King over the water," too, as 
Charles was called, had no scruples about plotting with any 
one against his life ; although there is reason to suppose that 
he would willingly have married one of his daughters, if Oli- 
ver would have had such a son-in-law. There was a certain 



422 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Colonel Saxby of the army, once a great supporter of Oli- 
ver's but now turned against him, who was a grievous trouble 
to him through all this part of his career ; and who came and 
went between the discontented in England and Spain, and 
Charles who put himself in alliance with Spain on being thrown 
off by France. This man died in prison at last ; but not until 
there had been very serious plots between the Royalists and 
Republicans, and an actual rising of them in England, when 
the}* burst into the city of Salisbury on a Sunday night, seized 
the judges who were going to hold the assizes there next day, 
and would have hanged them but for the merciful objections 
of the more temperate of their number. Oliver was so vigor- 
ous and shrewd that he soon put this revolt clown, as he did 
most other conspiracies ; and it was well for one of its chief 
managers — that same Lord Wilmot who had assisted in 
Charles's flight, and was now Earl of Rochester — that he 
made his escape. Oliver seemed to have eyes and ears every- 
where, and secured such sources of information as his ene- 
mies little dreamed of. There was a chosen body of six per- 
sons, called the Sealed Knot, who were in the closest and 
most secret confidence of Charles. One of the foremost of 
these very men, a Sir Richard Willis, reported to Oliver 
everything that passed among them, and had two hundred a 
year for it. 

Miles Syndarcomb, also of the old army, was another con- 
spirator against the Protector. He and a man named Cecil, 
bribed one of his Life Guards to let them have good notice 
when he was going out — intending to shoot him from a win- 
dow. But, owing either to his caution or his good fortune, 
they could never get an aim at him. Disappointed in this 
design, the}^ got into the chapel in Whitehall, with a basket- 
ful of combustibles, which were to explode by means of a slow 
match in six hours ; then in the noise and confusion of the 
fire, they hoped to kill Oliver. But, the Life Guardsman him- 
self disclosed this plot ; and they were seized, and Miles 
died (or killed himself in prison) a little while before he was 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 423 

ordered for execution. A few such plotters Oliver caused to 
be beheaded, a few more to be hanged, and many more, 
including those who rose in arms against him, to be sent as 
slaves to the West Indies. If he were rigid, he was impartial 
too, in asserting the laws of England. When a Portuguese 
nobleman, the brother of the Portuguese ambassador, killed a 
London citizen in mistake for another man with whom he had 
had a quarrel, Oliver caused him to be tried before a jury of 
Englishmen and foreigners, and had him executed in spite of 
the entreaties of all the ambassadors in London. 

One of Oliver's own friends, the Duke of Oldenburgh, in 
sending him a present of six fine coach-horses, was very near 
doing more to please the Royalists than all the plotters put 
together. One clay, Oliver went with his coach drawn by these 
six horses, into Hyde Park, to dine with his secretary and 
some of his other gentlemen under the trees there. After 
dinner, being merry, he took it into his head to put his friends 
inside and to drive them home : a postillion riding one of the 
foremost horses, as the custom was. On account of Oliver's 
being too free with the whip, the six fine horses went off at a 
gallop, the postillion got thrown, and Oliver fell upon the 
coach-pole and narrowly escaped being shot by his own pis- 
tol, which got entangled with his clothes in the harness, and 
went off. He was dragged some distance by the foot, 
until his foot came out of the shoe, and then he came safely 
to the ground under the broad body of the coach, and was 
very little the worse. The gentlemen inside were only bruised, 
and the discontented people of all parties were much disap- 
pointed. 

The rest of the history of the Protectorate of Oliver Crom- 
well is a history of his Parliaments. His first one not pleas- 
ing him at all, he waited until the five months were out, and 
then dissolved it. The next was better suited to his views ; 
and from that he desired to get — if he could with safety to 
himself — the title of King. He had had this in his mind 
some time : whether because he thought that the English 



424 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

people, being more used to the title, were more likely to obey 
it ; or whether because he really wished to be a King himself, 
and to leave the succession to that title in his family, is far 
from clear. He was already as high, in England and in all 
the world, as he would ever be, and I doubt if he cared for 
the mere name. However, a paper, called the " Humble 
Petition and Advice," was presented to him by the House of 
Commons, praying him to take a high title and to appoint his 
successor. That he would have taken the title of King there 
is no doubt, but for the strong opposition of the army. This 
induced him to forbear, and to assent only to the other points 
of the petition. Upon which occasion there was another 
grand show in Westminster Hall, when the Speaker of the 
House of Commons formally invested him with a purple robe 
lined with ermine, and presented him with a splendidly bound 
Bible, and put a golden sceptre in his hand. The next time 
the Parliament met, he called a House of Lords of sixty mem- 
bers, as the petition gave him power to do ; but as that 
Parliament did not please him either, and would not proceed 
to the business of the country, he jumped into a coach one 
morning, took six Guards with him, and sent them to the 
right-about. I wish this had been a warning to Parliaments 
to avoid long speeches, and do more work. 

It was the month of August, one thousand six hundred and 
fifty-eight, when Oliver Cromwell's favorite daughter, Eliza- 
beth Claypole (who had lately lost her youngest son) , la}' 
very ill, and his mind was greatly troubled, because he loved 
her dearly. Another of his daughters was married to Lord 
Falconberg, another to the grandson of the Earl of Warwick, 
and he had made his son Richard one of the members of the 
Upper House. He was very kind and loving to them all, 
being a good father and a good husband ; but he loved this 
daughter the best of the family, and went down to Hampton 
Court to see her, and could hardly be induced to stir from her 
sick room until she died. Although his religion had been of 
a gloomy kind, his disposition had been always cheerful. He 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 425 

had been fond of music in his home, and had kept open table 
once a week for all officers of the army not below the rank of 
captain, and had alwa}*s preserved in his house a quiet sensi- 
ble dignity. He encouraged men of genius and learning, and 
loved to have them about him. Milton was one of his great 
friends. He was good humored too, with the nobility , whose 
dresses and manners were very different from his ; and to 
show them what good information he had, he would some- 
times jokingly tell them when they were his guests, where 
the}^ had last drunk the health of the ' ' King over the water," 
and would recommend them to be more private (if they could) 
another time. But he had lived in busy times, and borne 
the weight of heavy State affairs, and had often gone in fear 
of Ms life. He was ill of the gout and ague ; and when the 
death of his beloved child came upon him in addition, he 
sank, never to raise his head again. He told his physicians 
on the twenty-fourth of August that the Lord had assured 
him that he was not to die in that illness, and that he would 
certainly get better. This was only his sick fancy, for on 
the third of September, which was the anniversary of the 
great battle of Worcester, and the clay of the year which he 
called his fortunate day, he died, in the sixtieth } r ear of his 
age. He had been delirious, and had lain insensible some 
hours, but he had been overheard to murmur a very good 
prayer the day before. The whole country lamented his 
death. If j t ou want to know the real worth of Oliver Crom- 
well, and his real sendees to his county, you can hardly do 
better than compare England under him, with England under 
Charles the Second. 

He had appointed his son Richard to succeed him, and 
after there had been, at Somerset House in the Strand, a 
lying in state more splendid than sensible — as all such vani- 
ties after death are, I think — Richard became Lord Protec- 
tor. He was an amiable country gentleman, but had none of 
his father's great genius, and was quite unfit for such a post 
in such a storm of parties. Richard's Protectorate, which 



426 A CHILD'S HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. 

only lasted a year and a half, is a history of quarrels between 
the officers of the army and the Parliament, and between the 
officers among themselves ; and of a growing discontent 
among the people, who had far too many long sermons and 
far too few amusements, and wanted a change. At last, 
General Monk got the army well into his own hands, and 
then in pursuance of a secret plan he seems to have enter- 
tained from the time of Oliver's death, declared for the King's 
cause. He did not do this openly ; but, in his place in the 
House of Commons, as one of the members for Devonshire, 
strongly advocated the proposals of one Sir John Greenville, 
who came to the House with a letter from Charles, dated from 
Breda, and with whom he had previously been in secret com- 
munication. There had been plots and counterplots, and a 
recall of the last members of the Long Parliament, and an 
end of the Long Parliament, and risings of the Roj'alists that 
were made too soon ; and most men being tired out, and 
there being no one to head the country now great Oliver was 
dead, it was readily agreed to welcome Charles Stuart. Some 
of the wiser and better members said — what was most true 
■ — that in the letter from Breda, he gave no real promise to 
govern well, and that it would be best to make him pledge 
himself beforehand as to what he should be bound to do for 
the benefit of the kingdom. Monk said, however, it would 
be all right when he came, and he could not come too soon. 

So, everybody found out all in a moment that the country 
must be prosperous and happy, having another Stuart to con- 
descend to reign over it ; and there was a prodigious firing 
off of guns, lighting of bonfires, ringing of bells, and throw- 
ing up of caps. The people drank the King's health b} 7 thou- 
sands in the open streets, and everybody rejoiced. Down 
came the Arms of the Commonwealth, up went the Royal 
Arms instead, and out came the public mone} r . Fifty thou- 
sand pounds for the King, ten thousand pounds for his brother 
the Duke of York, five thousand pounds for his brother the 
Duke of Gloucester. Praj-ers for these gracious Stuarts were 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 427 

put up in all the churches ; commissioners were sent to Hol- 
land (which suddenly found out that Charles was a great man, 
and that it loved him) to invite the King home ; Monk and 
the Kentish grandees went to Dover, to kneel down before 
him as he landed. He kissed and embraced Monk, made 
him ride in the coach with himself and his brothers, came on 
to London amid wonderful shoutings, and passed through the 
army at Blackheath on the twenty-ninth of May (his birth- 
daj*), in the year one thousand six hundred and sixty. 
Greeted by splendid dinners under tents, by flags and tap- 
estry streaming from all the houses, by delighted crowds in 
all the streets, by troops of noblemen and gentlemen in rich 
dresses, by City companies, train-bands, drummers, trum- 
peters, the great Lord Ma3'or, and the majestic Aldermen, 
the King went on to Whitehall. On entering it, he com- 
memorated his Restoration with the joke that it realty would 
seem to have been his own fault that he had not come long 
ago, since everybody told him that he had always wished for 
him with all his heart. 



428 A CHILD'S HISTOKY OF ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND, CALLED THE MERRY 
MONARCH. 

There never were such profligate times in England as 
under Charles the Second. Whenever you see his portrait, 
with his swarthy ill-looking face and great nose, you may 
fancy him in his Court at Whitehall, surrounded b} r some of 
the very worst vagabonds in the kingdom (though they were 
lords and ladies), drinking, gambling, indulging in vicious 
conversation, and committing every kind of profligate excess. 
It has been a fashion to call Charles the Second " The Merry 
Monarch." Let me try to give you a general idea of some 
of the merry things that were done, in the merry clays when 
this merry gentleman sat upon his merry throne, in merry 
England. 

The first merry proceeding was — of course — to declare 
that he was one of the greatest, the wisest, and the noblest 
kings that ever shone, like the blessed sun itself, on this be- 
nighted earth. The next merry and pleasant piece of busi- 
ness was, for the Parliament, in the humblest manner, to 
give him one million two hundred thousand pounds a year, 
and to settle upon him for life that old disputed tonnage and 
poundage which had been so bravely fought for. Then, Gen- 
eral Monk, being made Earl of Albemarle, and a few other 
Royalists similarly rewarded, the law went to work to see 
what was to be done to those persons (they were called Regi- 
cides) who had been concerned in making a martyr of the 
late King. Ten of these were merrily executed ; that is to 
say, six of the judges, one of the council, Colonel Hacker 



CHARLES THE SECOND. 429 

and another officer who had commanded the Guards, and 
Hugh Peters, a preacher who had preached against the mar- 
t}T with all his heart. These executions were so extremely 
merry, that every horrible circumstance which Cromwell had 
abandoned was revived with appalling cruelty. The hearts 
of the sufferers were torn out of their living bodies ; their 
bowels were burned before their faces ; the executioner cut 
jokes to the next victim, as he rubbed his filthy hands to- 
gether, that were reeking with the blood of the last ; and the 
heads of the dead were drawn on sledges with the living to 
the place of suffering. Still, even so merry a monarch could 
not force one of these dying men to say that he was sorry 
for what he had done. Naj r , the most memorable thing said 
among them was, that if the thing were to do again the}' 
w6uld do it. 

Sir Harry Vane, who had furnished the evidence against 
Strafford, and was one of the most staunch of the Repub- 
licans, was also tried, found guihvv, and ordered for execu- 
tion. When he came upon the scaffold on Tower Hill, after 
conducting his own defence with great power, his notes of 
what he had meant to say to the people were torn away from 
him, and the drums and trumpets were ordered to sound 
lustily and drown his voice ; for, the people had been so 
much impressed by what the Regicides had calmly said with 
their last breath, that it was the custom now, to have the 
drums and trumpets always under the scaffold, ready to 
strike up. Vane said no more than this : "It is a bad 
cause which cannot bear the words of a dying man : " and 
bravery died. 

These meny scenes were succeeded by another, perhaps 
even merrier. On the anniversary of the late King's death, 
the bodies of Oliver Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw, were 
torn out of their graves in Westminster Abbey, dragged to 
Tyburn, hanged there on a gallows all da} T long, and then 
beheaded. Imagine the head of Oliver Cromwell set upon a 
pole to be stared at by a brutal crowd, not one of whom 



430 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

would have dared to look the living Oliver in the face for half 
a moment! Think, after you have read this reign, what 
England was under Oliver Cromwell who was torn out of his 
grave, and what it was under this merry monarch who sold it, 
like a merry Judas, over and over again. 

Of course, the remains of Oliver's wife and daughter were 
not to be spared either, though they had been most excellent 
women. The base clergy of that time gave up their bodies, 
which had been buried in the Abbey, and — to the eternal 
disgrace of England — they were thrown into a pit, together 
with the mouldering bones of Pym and of the brave and bold 
old Admiral Blake. 

The clerg} r acted this disgraceful part because thej 7 hoped 
to get the nonconformists, or dissenters, thoroughly put down 
in this reign, and to have but one pra} r er-book and one ser- 
vice for all kinds of people, no matter what their private 
opinions were. This was pretty well, I think, for a Protest- 
ant Church, which had displaced the Romish Church because 
people had a right to their own opinions in religious matters. 
However, they carried it with a high hand, and a pra} T er-book 
was agreed upon, in which the extremest opinions of Arch- 
bishop Laud were not forgotten. An act was passed, too, 
preventing any dissenter from holding any office under any 
corporation. So, the regular clergy in their triumph were 
soon as merry as the King. The army being by this time 
disbanded, and the King crowned, everything was to go on 
easily for evermore. 

I must say a word here about the King's family. He had 
not been long upon the throne when his brother the Duke of 
Gloucester, and his sister the Princess of Orange, died 
within a few months of each other, of small-pox. His re- 
maining sister, the Princess Henrietta, married the Duke 
of Orleans, the brother of Louis the Fourteenth, King of 
France. His brother James, Duks of York, was made 
High Admiral, and lrv-and-by became a Catholic. He was a 
gloomy sullen bilious sort of man, with a remarkable par- 



CHARLES THE SECOND. 431 

tiality for the ugliest women in the country. He married, 
under ver} 7 discreditable circumstances, Anne Hyde, the 
daughter of Lord Clarendon, then the King's principal 
Minister — not at all a delicate minister either, but doing 
much of the dirty work of a very dirty palace. It became 
important now that the King himself should be married ; and 
divers foreign Monarchs, not very particular about the char- 
acter of their son-in-law, proposed their daughters to him. 
The King of Portugal offered his daughter Catherine op 
Braganza, and fifty thousand pounds : in addition to which, 
the French King, who was favorable to that match, offered a 
loan of another fifty thousand. The King of Spain, on the 
other hand, offered any one out of a dozen Princesses, and 
other hopes of gain. But the read} 7 money carried the day, 
and Catherine came over in state to her merry marriage. 

The whole Court was a great flaunting crowd of debauched 
men and shameless women ; and Catherine's merry husband 
insulted and outraged her in every possible way, until she 
consented to receive those worthless creatures as her very 
good friends, and to degrade herself by their companionship. 
A Mrs. Palmer, whom the King made Lady Castlemaine, 
and afterwards Duchess of Cleveland, was one of the most 
powerful of the bad women about the Court, and had great 
influence with the King nearly all through his reign. Another 
merry lady named Moll Davies, a dancer at the theatre, 
was afterwards her rival. So was Nell Gwyn, first an 
orange girl and then an actress, who really had good in her, 
and of whom one of the worst things I know is, that actually 
she does seem to have been fond of the King. The first 
Duke of St. Albans was this orange girl's child. In like 
manner the son of a merry waiting-lad} 7 , whom the King 
created Duchess of Portsmouth, became the Duke of 
Richmond. Upon the whole it is not so bad a thing to 
be a commoner. 

The Merry Monarch was so exceed ingfy meny among 
these merry ladies, and some equally merry (and equally 



432 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

infamous) lords and gentlemen, that he soon got through 
his hundred thousand pounds, and then, by way of raising 
a little pocket-money, made a merry bargain. He sold 
Dunkirk to the French King for five millions of livres. 
When I think of the dignity to which Oliver Cromwell 
raised England in the eyes of foreign powers, and when I 
think of the manner in which he gained for England this 
ver}^ Dunkirk, I am much inclined to consider that if the 
Merry Monarch had been made to follow his father for this 
action, he would have received his just deserts. 

Though he was like his father in none of that father's 
greater qualities, he was like him in being worthy of no 
trust. When he sent that letter to the Parliament, from 
Breda, he did expressly promise that all sincere religious 
opinions should be respected. Yet he was no sooner firm 
in his power than he consented to one of the worst Acts of 
Parliament ever passed. Under this law, eve^ minister 
who should not give his solemn assent to the Prayer-Book 
by a certain day, was declared to be a minister no longer, 
and to be deprived of his church. The consequence of this 
was that some two thousand honest men were taken from 
their congregations, and reduced to dire poverty and dis- 
tress. It was followed by another outrageous law, called the 
Conventicle Act, by which any person above the age of six- 
teen who was present at any religious service not according 
to the Pra} T er-Book, was to be imprisoned three months for 
the first offence, six for the second, and to be transported 
for the third. This Act alone filled the prisons, which were 
then most dreadful dungeons, to overflowing. 

The Covenanters in Scotland had already fared no better. 
A base Parliament, usually known as the Drunken Parlia- 
ment, in consequence of its principal members being seldom 
sober, had been got together to make laws against the Cove- 
nanters, and to force all men to be of one mind in religious 
matters. The Marquis of Argyle, relying on the King's 
honor, had given himself up to him ; but, he was wealthy, 



CHARLES THE SECOND. 433 

and his enemies wanted his wealth. He was tried for trea- 
son, on the evidence of some private letters in which he had 
expressed opinions — as well he might — more favorable to 
the government of the late Lord Protector than of the 
present merry and religions King. He was executed, as 
were two men of mark among the Covenanters ; and Sharp, 
a traitor who had once been the friend of the Presbyterians 
and betrayed them, was made Archbishop of St. Andrew's, 
to teach the Scotch how to like bishops. 

Things being in this merry state at home, the Merry Mon- 
arch undertook a war with the Dutch ; principally because 
thejr interfered with an African companj', established with 
the two objects of buying gold-dust and slaves, of which the 
Dujte of York was a leading member. After some prelim- 
inary hostilities, the said Duke sailed to the coast of Holland 
with a fleet of ninety -eight vessels of war, and four fire-ships. 
This engaged with the Dutch fleet, of no fewer than one 
hundred and thirteen ships. In the great battle between the 
two forces, the Dutch lost eighteen ships, four admirals, and 
seven thousand men. But, the English on shore were in no 
mood of exultation when they heard the news. 

For, this was the year and the time of the Great Plague 
in London. During the winter of one thousand six hundred 
and sixt}'-four it had been whispered about, that some few 
people had died here and there of the disease called the 
Plague, in some of the unwholesome suburbs around London. 
News was not published at that time as it is now, and some 
people believed these rumors, and some disbelieved them, 
and they were soon forgotten. But, in the month of May, 
one thousand six hundred and sixty-five, it began to be said 
all over the town that the disease had burst out with great 
violence in St. Giles's, and that the people were dying in 
great numbers. This soon turned out to be awfully true. 
The roads out of London were choked up bj^ people endeav- 
oring to escape from the infected city, and large sums were 
paid for any kind of conveyance. The disease soon spread 

28 



434 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

so fast, that it was necessary to shut up the houses in which 
sick people were, and to cut them off from communication 
with the living. Every one of these houses was marked on 
the outside of the door with a red cross, and the words, Lord, 
have mercy upon us ! The streets were all deserted, grass 
grew in the public ways, and there was a dreadful silence in 
the air. When night came on, dismal rumblings used to be 
heard, and these were the wheels of the death-carts, attended 
by men with veiled faces and holding cloths to their mouths, 
who rang doleful bells and cried in a loud and solemn voice, 
" Bring out your dead!" The corpses put into these carts 
were buried by torchlight in great pits ; no service being per- 
formed over them ; all men being afraid to stay for a moment 
on the brink of the ghastly graves. In the general fear, 
children ran away from their parents, and parents from their 
children. Some who were taken ill, died alone, and with- 
out any help. Some were stabbed or strangled by hired 
nurses who robbed them of all their money, and stole the 
very beds on which they lay. Some went mad, dropped 
from the windows, ran through the streets, and in their pain 
and frenzy flung themselves into the river. 

These were not all the horrors of the time. The wicked 
and dissolute, in wild desperation, sat in the taverns singing 
roaring songs, and were stricken as they drank, and went 
out and died. The fearful and superstitious persuaded them- 
selves that they saw supernatural sights — burning swords in 
the sky, gigantic arms and darts. Others pretended that 
at nights vast crowds of ghosts walked round and round the 
dismal pits. One madman, naked, and carrying a brazier 
full of burning coals upon his head, stalked through the 
streets, crying out that he was a Prophet, commissioned to 
denounce the vengeance of the Lord on wicked London. 
Another alwaj^s went to and fro, exclaiming, "Yet forty 
days, and London shall be destroyed ! " A third awoke 
the echoes in the dismal streets, by night and hy da}', 
and made the blood of the sick run cold, by calling out in- 



CHARLES THE SECOND. 435 

cessantly, in a deep hoarse voice. " O, the great and dread- 
ful God ! " 

Through the months of July and August and September, 
the Great Plague raged more and more. Great fires were 
lighted in the streets, in the hope of stopping the infection ; 
but there was a plague of rain too, and it beat the fires out. 
At last, the winds which usually arise at that time of the 
year which is called the equinox, when da}- and night are of 
equal length all over the world, began to blow, and to purify 
the wretched town. The deaths began to decrease, the red 
crosses slowly to disappear, the fugitives to return, the shops 
to open, pale frightened faces to be seen in the streets. The 
Plague had been in every part of England, but in close and 
unwholesome London it had killed one hundred thousand 
people. 

All this time, the Merry Monarch was as merry as ever, and 
as worthless as ever. All this time, the debauched lords 
and gentlemen and the shameless ladies danced and gamed 
and drank, and loved and hated one another, according to 
their merry ways. So little humanity did the government 
learn from the late affliction, that one of the first things the 
Parliament did when it met at Oxford (being as yet afraid to 
come to London) , was to make a law, called the Five Mile 
Act, expressly directed against those poor ministers, who, 
in the time of the Plague, had manfully come back to com- 
fort the unhappy people. This infamous law, by forbidding 
them to teach in any school, or to come within five miles of 
any city, town, or village, doomed them to starvation and 
death. 

The fleet had been at sea, and healthy. The King of 
France was now in alliance with the Dutch, though his navy 
was chiefly employed in looking on while the English and 
Dutch fought. The Dutch gained one victory ; and the Eng- 
lish gained another and a greater ; and Prince Rupert, one 
of the English admirals, was out in the Channel one wind}' 
night, looking for the French admiral, with the intention of 



436 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

giving him something more to do than he had had 3-et, when 
the gale increased to a storm, and blew him into Saint Helen's. 
That night was the third of September, one thousand six 
hundred and sixty-six, and that wind fanned the Great Fire 
of London. 

It broke out at a baker's shop near London Bridge, on the 
spot on which the Monument now stands as a remembrance 
of those raging flames. It spread and spread, and burned 
and burned, for three da} T s. The nights were lighter than 
the days ; in the day-time there was an immense cloud of 
smoke, and in the night-time there was a great tower of fire 
mounting up into the sky, which lighted the whole country 
landscape for ten miles round. Showers of hot ashes rose 
into the air and fell on distant places ; flying sparks carried 
the conflagration to great distances, and kindled it in twenty 
new spots at a time ; church steeples fell down with tremen- 
dous crashes ; houses crumbled into cinders by the hundred 
and the thousand. The summer had been intensely hot and 
dry, the streets were very narrow, and the houses mostly 
built of wood and plaster. Nothing could stop the tremen- 
dous fire, but the want of more houses to burn ; nor did it 
stop until the whole way from the Tower to Temple Bar was 
a desert, composed of the ashes of thirteen thousand houses 
and eighty-nine churches. 

This was a terrible visitation at the time, and occasioned 
great loss and suffering to the two hundred thousand burnt-out 
people, who were obliged to lie in the fields under the open 
night sky, or in hastily-made huts of mud and straw, while the 
lanes and roads were rendered impassable by carts which had 
broken down as they tried to save their goods. But the Fire 
was a great blessing to the City afterwards, for it arose from 
its ruins very much improved — built more regularly, more 
widely, more cleanly and carefully, and therefore much more 
healthily. It might be far more healthy than it is, but there 
are some people in it still — even now, at this time, nearly 
two hundred years later — so selfish, so pig-headed, and so 



CHARLES THE SECOND. 437 

ignorant, that I doubt if even another Great Fire would warm 
them up to do their duty. 

The Catholics were accused of having wilfully set London 
in flames ; one poor Frenchman, who had been mad for years, 
even accused himself of having with his own hand fired the 
first house. There is no reasonable doubt, however, that the 
fire was accidental. An inscription on the Monument long 
attributed it to the Catholics ; but it is removed now, and 
was always a malicious and stupid untruth. 



Second Part. 
i 
That the Merry Monarch might be very meny indeed, in 

the merry times when his people were suffering under pesti- 
lence and fire, he drank and gambled and flung away among 
his favorites the money which the Parliament had voted for 
the war. The consequence of this was that the stout-hearted 
English sailors were merrily starving of want, and dying in 
the streets ; while the Dutch, under their admirals De Witt 
and De Ruyter, came into the River Thames, and up the 
River Medway as far as Upnor, burned the guard-ships, 
silenced the weak batteries, and did what they would to the 
English coast for six whole weeks. Most of the English 
ships that could have prevented them had neither powder nor 
shot on board ; in this merry reign, public officers made 
themselves as meny as the King did with the public money ; 
and when it was entrusted to them to spend in national de- 
fences or preparations, they put it into their own pockets with 
the merriest grace in the world. 

Lord Clarendon had, bj r this time, run as long a course as 
is usually allotted to the unscrupulous ministers of bad kings. 
He was impeached by his political opponents, but unsuccess- 
fully. The King then commanded him to withdraw from 
England and retire to France, which he did, after defending 



438 A CHILD'S HISTOBY OF ENGLAND. 

himself in writing. He was no great loss at home, and died 
abroad some seven years afterwards. 

There then came into power a ministry called the Cabal 
Ministry, because it was composed of Lord Clifford, the 
Earl of Arlington, the Duke of Buckingham (a great ras- 
cal, and the King's most powerful favorite) , Lord Ashley, 
and the Duke of Lauderdale, c. a. b. a. l. As the French 
were making conquests in Flanders, the first Cabal proceed- 
ing was to make a treaty with the Dutch, for uniting with 
Spain to oppose the French. It was no sooner made than 
the Merry Monarch, who always wanted to get money without 
being accountable to a Parliament for his expenditure, apolo- 
gized to the King of France for having had anything to do 
with it, and concluded a secret treaty with him, making him- 
self his infamous pensioner to the amount of two millions of 
livres down, and three millions more a year ; and engaging 
to desert that very Spain, to make war against those very 
Dutch, and to declare himself a Catholic when a convenient 
time should arrive. This religious king had lately been cry- 
ing to his Catholic brother on the subject of his strong desire 
to be a Catholic ; and now he merrily concluded this treason- 
able conspiracy against the counlay he governed, bj^ under- 
taking to become one as soon as he safely could. For all of 
which, though he had had ten merry heads instead of one, he 
richly deserved to lose them by the headsman's axe. 

As his one merry head might have been far from safe, if 
these things had been known, they were kept very quiet, and 
war was declared by France and England against the Dutch. 
But, a very uncommon man, afterwards most important to 
English histoiy and to the religion and liberty of this land, 
arose among them, and for many long years defeated the 
whole projects of France. This was William of- Nassau, 
Prince of Orange, son of the last Prince of Orange of the 
same name, who married the daughter of Charles the First 
of England. He was a young man at this time, only just of 
age ; but he was brave, cool, intrepid, and wise. His father 



CHAKLES THE SECOND. 439 

had been so detested that, upon his death, the Dutch had 
abolished the authorit}' to which this son would have other- 
wise succeeded (Stadtholder it was called), and placed the 
chief power in the hands of John de Witt, who educated 
this young prince. Now, the Prince became very popular, 
and John de Witt's brother Cornelius was sentenced to ban- 
ishment on a false accusation of conspiring to kill him. John 
went to the prison where he was, to take him away to exile, 
in his coach ; and a great mob who collected on the occasion, 
then and there cruelty murdered both the brothers. This 
left the government in the hands of the Prince, who was 
really the choice of the nation ; and from this time he exer- 
cised it with the greatest vigor, against the whole power of 
France, under its famous generals Conde and Turenne, and 
in support of the Protestant religion. It was full seven years 
before this war ended in a treat}- of peace made at Nimeguen, 
and its details would occupy a very considerable space. It 
is enough to say that William of Orange established a famous 
character with the whole world ; and that the Meny Monarch, 
adding to and improving on his former baseness, bound him- 
self to do everything the King of France liked, and noth- 
ing the King of France did not like, for a pension of one 
hundred thousand pounds a } T ear, which was afterwards 
doubled. Besides this, the King of France, by means of his 
corrupt ambassador — who wrote accounts of his proceedings 
in England, which are not always to be believed, I think — 
bought our English members of Parliament, as he wanted 
them. So, in point of fact, during a considerable portion 
of this merry reign, the King of France was the real King 
of this country. 

But there was a better time to come, and it was to come 
(though his royal uncle little thought so) through that very 
William, Prince of Orange. He came over to England, saw 
Maiy, the elder daughter of the Duke of York, and married 
her. We shall see by-and-by what came of that marriage, 
and wiry it is never to be forgotten. 



440 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

This daughter was a Protestant, but her mother died a 
Catholic. She and her sister Anne, also a Protestant, were 
the only survivors of eight children. Anne afterwards mar- 
ried George, Prince of Denmark, brother to the King of 
that country. 

Lest you should do the Merry Monarch the injustice of 
supposing that he was even good-humored (except when he 
had everything his own way) , or that he was high-spirited 
and honorable, I will mention here what was done to a mem- 
ber of the House of Commons, Sir John Coventry. He 
made a remark in a debate about taxing the theatres, which 
gave the King offence. The King agreed with his illegitimate 
son, who had been born abroad, and whom he had made 
Duke of Monmouth, to take the following meny vengeance. 
To waylay him at night, fifteen armed men to one, and to slit 
his nose with a penknife. Like master, like man. The 
King's favorite, the Duke of Buckingham, was strongly sus- 
pected of setting on an assassin to murder the Duke of Or- 
mond as he was returning home from a dinner; and that 
Duke's spirited son, Lord Ossory, was so persuaded of his 
guilt, that he said to him at Court, even as he stood beside 
the King, " My lord, I know very well that you are at the 
bottom of this late attempt upon my father. But I give you 
warning, if he ever come to a violent end, his blood shall be 
upon you, and wherever I meet you I will pistol you ! I will 
do so, though I find you standing behind the King's chair ; 
and I tell you this in his Majesty's presence, that you may be 
quite sure of my doing what I threaten." Those were merry 
times indeed. 

There was a fellow named Blood, who was seized for 
making, with two companions, an audacious attempt to steal 
the crown, the globe, and sceptre, from the place where the 
jewels were kept in the Tower. This robber, who was a 
swaggering ruffian, being taken, declared that he was the 
man who had endeavored to kill the Duke of Ormond, and 
that he had meant to kill the King too, but was overawed by 



CHARLES THE SECOND. 441 

the majest} T of his appearance, when he might otherwise have 
done it, as he was bathing at Battersea. The King being but 
an ill-looking fellow, I don't believe a word of this. Whether 
he was flattered, or whether he knew that Buckingham had 
realty set Blood on to murder the Duke, is uncertain. But it 
is quite certain that he pardoned this thief, gave him an es- 
tate of five hundred a year in Ireland (which had had the 
honor of giving him birth), and presented him at Court to 
the debauched lords and the shameless ladies, who made a 
great deal of him — as I have no doubt they would have made 
of the Devil himself, if the King had introduced him. 

Infamously pensioned as he was, the King still w r anted 
mone3 T , and consequently was obliged to call Parliaments. 
In these, the great object of the Protestants was to thwart the 
Catholic Duke of York, who married a second time ; his new 
wife being a young lady only fifteen years old, the Catholic 
sister of the Duke of Modena. In this the} 7 were seconded 
b}' the Protestant Dissenters, though to their own disadvan- 
tage : since, to exclude Catholics from power, they were even 
willing to exclude themselves. The King's object was to 
pretend to be a Protestant, while he was really a Catholic ; 
to swear to the Bishops that he was devoutly attached to the 
English Church, while he knew he had bargained it away to 
the King of France ; and by cheating and deceiving them, 
and all who were attached to royalty, to become despotic and 
be powerful enough to confess what a rascal he was. Mean- 
time the King of France, knowing his merry pensioner well, 
intrigued with the King's opponents in Parliament, as well as 
with the King and his friends. 

The fears that the country had of the Catholic religion be- 
ing restored, if the Duke of York should come to the throne, 
and the low cunning of the King in pretending to share their 
alarms, led to some very terrible results. A certain Dr. 
Tonge, a dull clergyman in the city, fell into the hands of a 
certain Titus Oates, a most infamous character, who pre- 
tended to have acquired among the Jesuits abroad a knowl- 



442 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

edge of a great plot for the murder of the King, and the 
re-establishment of the Catholic religion. Titus Oates being 
produced by this unlucky Dr. Tonge and solemnly examined 
before the council, contradicted himself in a thousand wa} T s, 
told the most ridiculous and improbable stories, and impli- 
cated Coleman, the Secretary of the Duchess of York. Now, 
although what he charged against Coleman was not true, and 
although you and I know very well that the real dangerous 
Catholic plot was that one with the King of France of which 
the Merry Monarch was himself the head, there happened to 
be found among Coleman's papers, some letters, in which he 
did praise the days of Bloody Queen Mary, and abuse the 
Protestant religion. This was great good fortune for Titus, 
as it seemed to confirm him ; but better still was in store. 
Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, the magistrate who had first ex- 
amined him, being unexpectedly found dead near Primrose 
Hill, was confidently believed to have been killed by the 
Catholics. I think there is no doubt that he had been mel- 
ancholy mad, and that he killed himself; but he had a great 
Protestant funeral, and Titus was called the Saver of the 
Nation, and received a pension of twelve hundred pounds a 
year. 

As soon as Oates's wickedness had met with this success, 
up started another villain, named William Bedloe, who, 
attracted by a reward of five hundred pounds offered for the 
apprehension of the murderers of Godfrey, came forward and 
charged two Jesuits and some other persons with having 
committed it at the Queen's desire. Oates, going into part- 
nership with this new informer, had the audacity to accuse 
the poor Queen herself of high treason. Then appeared a 
third informer, as bad as either of the two, and accused 
a Catholic banker named Stayley of having said that the 
King was the greatest rogue in the world (which would not 
have been far from the truth) , and that he would kill him 
with his own hand. This banker, being at once tried and 
executed, Coleman and two others were tried and executed. 



CHAELES THE SECOND. 443 

Then, a miserable wretch named Prance, a Catholic silver- 
smith, being accused by Beclloe, was tortured into confessing 
that he had taken part in Godfre3 T 's murder, and into accus- 
ing three other men of having committed it. Then, five Jes- 
uits were accused by Oates, Bedloe, and Prance together, 
and were all found guilt}', and executed on the same kind of 
contradictory and absurd evidence. The Queen's physician 
and three monks were next put on their trial ; but Oates and 
Bedloe had for the time gone far enough, and these four were 
acquitted. The public mind, however, was so full of a Cath- 
olic plot, and so strong against the Duke of York, that James 
consented to obey a written order from his brother, and to 
go with his family to Brussels, provided that his rights should 
n^ver be sacrificed in his absence to the Duke of Monmouth. 
The House of Commons, not satisfied with this as the King 
hoped, passed a bill to exclude the Duke from ever succeed- 
ing to the throne. In return, the King dissolved the Par- 
liament. He had deserted his old favorite, the Duke of 
Buckingham, who was now in the opposition. 

To give an} f sufficient idea of the miseries of Scotland in 
this merry reign, would occupy a hundred pages. Because 
the people would not have bishops, and were resolved to 
stand by their Solemn League and Covenant, such cruelties 
w r ere inflicted upon them as make the blood run cold. Fero- 
cious dragoons galloped through the country to punish the 
peasants for deserting the churches ; sons were hanged up at 
their fathers' doors for refusing to disclose where their fathers 
were concealed ; wives were tortured to death for not betray- 
ing their husbands ; people were taken out of their fields and 
gardens, and shot on the public roads without trial ; lighted 
matches were tied to the fingers of prisoners, and a most 
horrible torment called the Boot was invented, and constantly 
applied, which ground and mashed the victims' legs with iron 
wedges. Witnesses were tortured as well as prisoners. All 
the prisons were full ; all the gibbets were heav}- with bodies ; 
murder and plunder devastated the whole countiy. In spite 



444 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

of all, the Covenanters were by no means to be dragged into 
the churches, and persisted in worshipping God as they 
thought right. A bocly of ferocious Highlanders, turned 
upon them from the mountains of their own country, had no 
greater effect than the English dragoons under Grahame op 
Claverhouse, the most cruel and rapacious of all their ene- 
mies, whose name will ever be cursed through the length and 
breadth of Scotland. Archbishop Sharp had ever aided and 
abetted all these outrages. But he fell at last ; for when the 
injuries of the Scottish people were at their height, he was 
seen, in his coach-and-six coming across a moor, by a body 
of men, headed by one John Balfour, who were waiting for 
another of their oppressors. Upon this the}?- cried out that 
Heaven had delivered him into their hands, and killed him 
with many wounds. If ever a man deserved such a death, I 
think Archbishop Sharp did. 

It made a great noise directly, and the Merry Monarch — 
strongly suspected of having goaded the Scottish people on, 
that he might have an excuse for a greater army than the 
Parliament were willing to give him — sent down his son, the 
Duke of Monmouth, as commander-in-chief, with instructions 
to attack the Scottish rebels, or Whigs, as they were called, 
whenever he came up with them. Marching with ten thou- 
sand men from Edinburgh, he found them, in number four or 
five thousand, drawn up at Bothwell Bridge, by the Clyde. 
The3 T were soon dispersed ; and Monmouth showed a more 
humane character towards them, than he had shown towards 
that Member of Parliament whose nose he had caused to be 
slit with a penknife. But the Duke of Lauderdale was their 
bitter foe, and sent Claverhouse to finish them. 

As the Duke of York became more and more unpopular, 
the Duke of Monmouth became more and more popular. It 
would have been decent in the latter not to have voted in 
favor of the renewed bill for the exclusion of James from the 
throne ; but he did so, much to the King's amusement, who 
used to sit in the House of Lords by the fire, hearing the de- 



CHARLES THE SECOND. 445 

bates, which he said were as good as a play. The House of 
Commons passed the bill by a large majorit} r , and it was 
carried up to the House of Lords by Lord Russell, one of 
the best of the leaders on the Protestant side. It was re- 
jected there, chiefly because the Bishops helped the King to 
get rid of it ; and the fear of Catholic plots revived again, 
There had been another got up, by a fellow out of Newgate, 
named Dangerfield, which is more famous than it deserves 
to be, under the name of the Meal-Tub Plot. This jail- 
bird having been got out of Newgate b} T a Mrs. Cellier, a 
Catholic nurse, had turned Catholic himself, and pretended 
that he knew of a plot among the Presbyterians against the 
King's life. This was very pleasant to the Duke of York, 
who hated the Presbyterians, who returned the compliment. 
H'e gave Dangerfield twent}^ guineas, and sent him to the 
King his brother. But Dangerfield, breaking down alto- 
gether in his charge, and being sent back to Newgate, almost 
astonished the Duke out of his five senses by suddenly swear- 
ing that the Catholic nurse had put that false design into his 
head, and that what he really knew about, was, a Catholic 
plot -against the King ; the evidence, of which would be found 
in some papers, concealed in a meal-tub in Mrs. Cellier's 
house. There they were, of course — for he had put them 
there himself — and so the tub gave the name to the plot. 
But, the nurse was acquitted on her trial, and it came to 
nothing. 

Lord Ashle}^, of the Cabal, was now Lord Shaftesbur} T , and 
w'as strong against the succession of the Duke of York. The 
House of Commons, aggravated to the utmost extent, as we 
ma}' well suppose, by suspicions of the King's conspiracy 
with the King of France, made a desperate point of the ex- 
clusion still, and were bitter against the Catholics generall}'. 
So unjustly bitter were they, I grieve to sa} r , that the}' im- 
peached the venerable Lord Stafford, a Catholic nobleman 
seventy years old, of a design to kill the King. The wit- 
nesses were that atrocious Oates and two other birds of the 



446 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

same feather. He was found guilty, on evidence quite as 
foolish as it was false, and was beheaded on Tower Hill. 
The people were opposed to him when he first appeared upon 
the scaffold ; but, when he had addressed them and shown 
them how innocent he was and how wickedly he was sent 
there, their better nature was aroused, and they said, "We 
believe you, my Lord. God bless you, my Lord ! " 

The House of Commons refused to let the King have any 
money until he should consent to the Exclusion Bill ; but, as 
he could get it and did get it from his master the King of 
France, he could afford to hold them very cheap. He called 
a Parliament at Oxford, to which he went down with a great 
show of being armed and protected as if he were in danger 
of his life, and to which the opposition members also went 
armed and protected, alleging that they were in fear of the 
Papists, who were numerous among the King's guards. How- 
ever, they went on with the Exclusion Bill, and were so ear- 
nest upon it that they would have carried it again, if the King 
had not popped his crown and state robes into a sedan-chair, 
bundled himself into it along with them, hurried down to the 
chamber where the House of Lords met, and dissolved the 
Parliament. After which he scampered home, and the mem- 
bers of Parliament scampered home too, as fast as their legs 
could carry them. 

The Duke of York, then residing in Scotland, had, under 
the law which excluded Catholics from public trust, no right 
whatever to public employment. Nevertheless, he was openly 
employed as the King's representative in Scotland, and there 
gratified his sullen and cruel nature to his heart's content 
by directing the dreadful cruelties against the Covenanters. 
There were two ministers named Cargill and Cameron who 
had escaped from the battle of Both well Bridge, and who 
returned to Scotland, and raised the miserable but still brave 
and unsubdued Covenanters afresh, under the name of Cam- 
eronians. As Cameron publicl}' posted a declaration that the 
King was a forsworn tyrant, no mercy was shown to his un- 



CHAELES THE SECOND. 447 

happy followers after he was slain in battle. The Duke of 
York, who was particularly fond of the Boot and derived 
great pleasure from having it applied, offered their lives to 
some of these people, if they would cr} r on the scaffold, "God 
save the King ! " But their relations, friends, and country- 
men had been so barbarously tortured and murdered in this 
merry reign, that the}' preferred to die, and did die. The 
Duke then obtained his meny brother's permission to hold a 
Parliament in Scotland, which first, with most shameless de- 
ceit, confirmed the laws for securing the Protestant religion 
against Popen~, and then declared that nothing must or 
should prevent the succession of a Popish Duke. After this 
double-faced beginning, it established an oath which no 
human being could understand, but which everybody was to 
talve, as a proof that his religion was the lawful religion. 
The Earl of Argyle, taking it with the explanation that he 
did not consider it to prevent him from favoring an}- alter- 
ation either in the Church or State which was not inconsistent 
with the Protestant religion or with his loyahy, was tried for 
high treason before a Scottish jury, of which the Marquis of 
Montrose was foreman, and was found guilty. He escaped 
the scaffold, for that time, by getting awaj-, in the disguise 
of a page, in the train of his daughter, Lady Sophia Lindsay. 
It was absolutely proposed, by certain members of the Scot- 
tish Council, that this lady should be whipped through the 
streets of Edinburgh. But this was too much even for the 
Duke, who had the manliness then (he had very little at 
most times) to remark that Englishmen were not accustomed 
to treat ladies in that manner. In those merry times 
nothing could equal the brutal servility of the Scottish fawn- 
ers, but the conduct of similar degraded beings in England. 

After the settlement of these little affairs, the Duke 
returned to England, and soon resumed his place at the Coun- 
cil, and his office of High Admiral — all this by his brother's 
favor, and in open defiance of the law. It would have been 
no loss to the country, if he had been drowned when his ship, 



448 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

in going to Scotland to fetch his family, struck on a sand-bank, 
and was lost with two hundred souls on board. But he 
escaped in a boat with some friends ; and x the sailors were so 
brave and unselfish, that, when the}' saw him rowing away, they 
gave three cheers, while they themselves were going down for 
ever. 

The Merry Monarch, having got rid of his Parliament, went 
to work to make himself despotic, with all speed. Having 
had the villainy to order the execution of Oliver Plunket, 
Bishop of Armagh, falsely accused of a plot to establish Po- 
peiy in that county by means of a French army — the very 
thing this royal traitor was himself trying to do at home — 
and having tried to ruin Lord Shaftesbury, and failed — he 
turned his hand to controlling the corporations all over the 
country ; because, if he could only do that, he could get what 
juries he chose, to bring in perjured verdicts, and could get 
what members he chose, returned to Parliament. These merry 
times produced, and made Chief Justice of the Court of King's 
Bench, a drunken ruffian of the name of Jeffreys ; a red- 
faced swollen bloated horrible creature, with a bullying roar- 
ing voice, and a more savage nature perhaps than was ever 
lodged in any human breast. This monster was the Merry 
Monarch's especial favorite, and he testified his admiration 
of him b} T giving him a ring from his own finger, which the 
people used to call Judge Jenroys's Blood-stone. Him the 
King employed to go about and bully the corporations, begin- 
ning with London ; or, as Jeffre} r s himself elegantly called it, 
" to give them a lick with the rough side of his tongue." And 
he did it so thoroughly, that thej- soon became the basest and 
most sj'cophantic bodies in the kingdom — except the Univer- 
sity of Oxford, which, in that respect, was quite pre-eminent 
and unapproachable. 

Lord Shaftesbury (who died soon after the King's failure 
against him), Lord William Russell, the Duke of Mon- 
mouth, Lord Howard, Lord Jersey, Algernon Sidney, 
John Hampden (grandson of the great Hampden) , and some 



CHARLES THE SECOND. 449 

others, used to hold a council together after the dissolution of 
the Parliament, arranging what it might be necessaiy to do, 
if the King carried his Popish plot to the utmost height. 
Lord Shaftesbury having been much the most violent of this 
part}', brought two violent men into their secrets — Rumset, 
who had been a soldier in the Republican army ; and West, 
a lawyer. These two knew an old officer of Cromwell's, 
called Rumbold, who had married a maltster's widow, and so 
had come into possession of a solitary dwelling called the Rye 
House, near Hodclesdon, in Hertfordshire. Rumbold said 
to them what a capital place this house of his would be from 
which to shoot at the King, who often passed there going 
to and fro from Newmarket. They liked the idea, and enter- 
tained it. But, one of their body gave information ; and they, 
together with Shepherd a wine merchant, Lord Russell, 
Algernon Sidney, Lord Essex, Lord Howard, and Hampden, 
were all arrested. 

Lord Russell might have easily escaped, but scorned to do 
so, being innocent of any wrong ; Lord Essex might have eas- 
ily escaped, but scorned to do so, lest his flight should prejudice 
Lord Russell. But it weighed upon his mind that he had 
brought into their council, Lord Howard — who now turned a 
miserable traitor — against a great dislike Lord Russell had 
always had of him. He could not bear the reflection, and 
destroyed himself before Lord Russell was brought to trial at 
the Old Bailey. 

He knew very well that he had nothing to hope, having 
always been manful in the Protestant cause against the two 
false brothers, the one on the throne, and the other standing 
next to it. He had a wife, one of the noblest and best of 
women, who acted as his secretary on his trial, who comforted 
him in his prison, who supped with him on the night before he 
died, and whose love and virtue and devotion have made her 
name imperishable. Of course, he was found guilt}', and was 
sentenced to be beheaded in Lincoln's Inn-fields, not many 
yards from his own house. When he had parted from his chil- 

29 



450 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

dren on the evening before his death, his wife still stayed with 
him until ten o'clock at night ; and when their final separation 
in this world was over, and he had kissed her many times, 
he still sat for a long while in his prison, talking of her good- 
ness. Hearing the rain fall fast at the time, he calmly said, 
" Such a rain to-morrow will spoil a great show, which is a 
dull thing on a rainy day." At midnight he went to bed, 
and slept till four ; even when his servant called him, he fell 
asleep again while his clothes were being made ready. He 
rode to the scaffold in his own carriage, attended by two 
famous clergj^men, Tillotson and Burnet, and sang a psalm 
to himself very softly, as he went along. He was as quiet 
and as steady as if he had been going out for an ordinary 
ride. After sa}ing that he was surprised to see so great a 
crowd, he laid down his head upon the block, as if upon the 
pillow of his bed, and had it struck off at the second blow. 
His noble wife was busy for him even then ; for that true- 
hearted lady printed and widely circulated his last words, of 
which he had given her a copy. They made the blood of all 
the honest men in England boil. 

The University of Oxford distinguished itself on the very 
same day by pretending to believe that the accusation against 
Lord Russell was true, and by calling the King, in a written 
paper, the Breath of their Nostrils and the Anointed of the 
Lord. This paper the Parliament afterwards caused to be 
burned by the common hangman ; which I am sorry for, as I 
wish it had been framed and glazed and hung up in some 
public place, as a monument of baseness for the scorn of 
mankind. 

Next, came the trial of Algernon Sidney, at which Jeffreys 
presided, like a great crimson toad, sweltering and swelling 
with rage. " I pray God, Mr. Sidney," said this Chief Jus- 
tice of a merry reign, after passing sentence, " to work in 3'ou 
a temper fit to go to the other world, for I see you are not 
fit for this." " My lord," said the prisoner, composedly hold- 
ing out his arm, ' ' feel my pulse, and see if I be disordered. I 



CHARLES THE SECOND. 451 

thank Heaven I never was in better temper than I am now." 
Algernon Sidney was executed on Tower Hill, on the seventh 
of December, one thousand six hundred and eighty- three. 
He died a hero, and died, in his own words, " For that good 
old cause in which he had been engaged from his youth, and 
for which God had so often and so wonderfully declared him- 
self. 

The Duke of Monmouth had been making his uncle, the 
Duke of York, very jealous, by going about the country in a 
royal sort of way, playing at the people's games, becoming 
god-father to their children, and even touching for the King's 
evil, or stroking the faces of the sick to cure them — though, 
for the matter of that, I should say he did them about as much 
gooc} as any crowned king could have done. His father had 
got him to write a letter, confessing his having had a part in the 
conspiracy, for which Lord Russell had been beheaded ; but 
he was ever a weak man, and as soon as he had written it, 
he was ashamed of it and got it back again. For this, he was 
banished to the Netherlands ; but he soon returned and had 
an interview with his father, unknown to his uncle. It would 
seem that he was coming into the Merry Monarch's favor 
again, and that the Duke of York was sliding out of it, when 
Death appeared to the merry galleries at Whitehall, and as- 
tonished the debauched lords and gentlemen, and the shame- 
less ladies, very considerably. 

On Monday, the second of February, one thousand six 
hundred and eighty-five, the inerry pensioner and servant of 
the King of France fell down in a fit of apoplexy. By the 
Wednesday his case was hopeless, and on the Thursday he was 
told so. As he made a difficulty about taking the sacrament 
from the Protestant Bishop of Bath, the Duke of York got 
all who were present away from the bed, and asked his 
brother, in a whisper, if he should send for a Catholic priest ? 
The King replied, "For God's sake, brother, do!" The 
Duke smuggled in, up the back stairs, disguised in a wig 
and gown, a priest named Huddleston, who had saved the 



452 A CHILD'S HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. 

King's life after the battle of Worcester: telling him that 
this worthy man in the wig had once saved his body, and 
was now come to save his soul. 

The Merry Monarch lived through that night, and died 
before noon on the next day, which was Friday, the sixth. 
Two of the last things he said were of a human sort, and 
your remembrance will give him the full benefit of them. 
When the Queen sent to say she was too unwell to attend 
him and to ask his pardon, he said, "Alas! poor woman, 
she beg my pardon ! I beg hers with all my heart. Take 
back that answer to her." And he also said, in reference to 
Nell Gwyn, " Do not let poor Nelly starve." 

He died in the fifty-fifth year of his age, and the twenty- 
fifth of his reign. 




DEATH OF CHARLES LL 



JAMES THE SECOND. 453 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE SECOND. 

King James the Second was a man so very disagreea- 
ble, that even the best of historians has favored his brother 
Charles, as becoming, by comparison, quite a pleasant char- 
acter. The one object of his short reign was to re-establish 
the Qatholic religion in England ; and this he doggedly pur- 
sued with such a stupid obstinacy, that his career very soon 
came to a close. 

The first thing he did, was, to assure his council that he 
would make it his endeavor to preserve the Government, both 
in Church and State, as it was by law established ; and that 
he would always take care to defend and support the Church. 
Great public acclamations were raised over this fair speech, 
and a great deal was said, from the pulpits and elsewhere, 
about the word of a King which was never broken, by credu- 
lous people who little supposed that he had formed a secret 
council for Catholic affairs, of which a mischievous Jesuit, 
called Father Petre, was one of the chief members. With 
tears of joy in his eyes, he received, as the beginning of Ms 
pension from the King of France, five hundred thousand 
livres ; yet, with a mixture of meanness and arrogance that 
belonged to his contemptible character, he was alwa} T s jealous 
of making some show of being independent of the King of 
France, while he pocketed his money. As — notwithstanding 
his publishing two papers in favor of Popery (and not likely 
to do it much service, I should think) written by the King, 
his brother, and found in his strong-box ; and his open dis- 
play of himself attending mass — the Parliament was very 



454 A CHILD'S HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. 

obsequious, and granted him a large sum of money, he began 
his reign with a belief that he could do what he pleased, and 
with a determination to do it. 

Before we proceed to its principal events, let us dispose of 
Titus Oates. He was tried for perjury, a fortnight after the 
coronation, and besides being very heavily fined, was sen- 
tenced to stand twice in the pillory, to be whipped from Aid- 
gate to Newgate one day, and from Newgate to T3^burn two 
days afterwards, and to stand in the pillory five times a year 
as long as he lived. This fearful sentence was actually in- 
flicted on the rascal. Being unable to stand after his first 
flogging, he was dragged on a sledge from Newgate to Ty- 
burn, and flogged as he was drawn along. He was so strong 
a villain that he did not die under the torture, but lived to be 
afterwards pardoned and rewarded, though not to be ever 
believed in any more. Dangerfield, the only other one of 
that crew left alive, was not so fortunate. He was almost 
killed by a whipping from Newgate to Tyburn, and, as if that 
were not punishment enough, a ferocious barrister of Gray's 
Inn gave him a poke in the eye with his cane, which caused 
his death ; for which the ferocious barrister was deservedly 
tried and executed. 

As soon as James was on the throne, Argyle and Mon- 
mouth went from Brussels to Rotterdam, and attended a 
meeting of Scottish exiles held there, to concert measures 
for a rising in England. It was agreed that Argyle should 
effect a landing in Scotland, and Monmouth in England ; and 
that two Englishmen should be sent . with Argyle to be in 
his confidence, and two Scotchmen with the Duke of Mon- 
mouth. 

Argyle was the first to act upon this contract. But, two 
of his men being taken prisoners at the Orkney Islands, the 
Government became aware of his intention, and was able 
to act against him with such vigor as to prevent his raising 
more than two or three thousand Highlanders, although he 
sent a fieiy cross, by trust}^ messengers, from clan to clan 



JAMES THE SECOND. 455 

and from glen to glen, as the custom then was when those 
wild people were to be excited by their chiefs. As he was 
moving towards Glasgow with his small force, he was be- 
trayed by some of his followers, taken, and carried, with his 
hands tied behind his back, to his old prison in Edinburgh 
Castle. James ordered him to be executed, on his old shame- 
fully unjust sentence, within three days ; and he appears to 
have been anxious that his legs should have been pounded 
with his old favorite the boot. However, the boot was not 
applied ; he was simply beheaded, and his head was set upon 
the top of Edinburgh Jail. One of those Englishmen who 
had been assigned to him was that old soldier Rumbold, the 
master of the Rye House. He was sorely wounded, and 
within a week after Argyle had suffered with great courage, 
was brought up for trial, lest he should die and disappoint 
the King. He, too, was executed, after defending himself 
with great spirit, and sa} T ing that he did not believe that God 
had made the greater part of mankind to carry saddles on 
their backs and bridles in their mouths, and to be ridden by 
a few, booted and spurred for the purpose — in which I thor- 
ough^ agree with Rumbold. 

The Duke of Monmouth, partly through being detained 
and partly through idling his time away , was five or six weeks 
behind his friend when he landed at Lyme, in Dorset : having 
at his right hand an unluck} T nobleman called Lord Grey op 
Werk, who of himself would have ruined a far more promis- 
ing expedition. He immediately set up his standard in the 
market-place, and proclaimed the King a t}^rant, and a Popish 
usurper, and I know not what else ; charging him not only 
with what he had done, which was bad enough, but with what 
neither he nor anybody else had done, such as setting fire to 
London, and poisoning the late King. Raising some four 
thousand men by these means, he marched on to Taunton, 
where there were man}' Protestant dissenters who were 
strongly opposed to the Catholics. Here, both the rich and 
poor turned out to receive him, ladies waved a welcome to 



456 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

him from all the windows as he passed along the streets, 
flowers were strewn in his way, and every compliment and 
honor that could be devised was showered upon him. Among 
the rest, twenty young ladies came forward, in their best 
clothes, and in their brightest beauty, and gave him a Bible 
ornamented with their own fair hands, together with other 
presents. 

Encouraged by this homage, he proclaimed himself King, 
and went on to Bridgewater. But, here the Government 
troops, under the Earl of Feversham, were close at hand ; 
and he was so dispirited at finding that he made but few 
powerful friends after all, that it was a question whether he 
should disband his army and endeavor to escape. It was 
resolved, at the instance of that unlucky Lord Grey, to make 
a night attack on the King's army, as it lay encamped on 
the edge of a morass called Sedgemoor. The horsemen were 
commanded by the same unluck} 7 lord, who was not a brave 
man. He gave up the battle almost at the first obstacle — 
which was a deep drain ; and although the poor country- 
men, who had turned out for Monmouth, fought bravely with 
sc} T thes, poles, pitchforks, and such poor weapons as they 
had, they were soon dispersed by the trained soldiers, and 
fled in all directions. When the Duke of Monmouth himseli 
fled, was not known in the confusion ; but the unlucky Lord 
Grey was taken early next da} r , and then another of the party 
was taken, who confessed that he had parted from the Duke 
only four hours before. Strict search being made, he was 
found disguised as a peasant, hidden in a ditch under fern 
and nettles, with a few peas in his pocket which he had gath- 
ered in the fields to eat. The only other articles he had upon 
him were a few papers and little books : one of the latter 
being a strange jumble, in his own writing, of charms, songs, 
recipes, and prayers. He was completely broken. He wrote 
a miserable letter to the King, beseeching and entreating to 
be allowed to see him. When he was taken to London, and 
conveyed bound into the King's presence, he crawled to him 



JAMES THE SECOND. 457 

on his knees . and made a most degrading exhibition. Aa 
James never forgave or relented towards anybody, he was 
not likely to soften towards the issuer of the Lyme proclama- 
tion, so he told the suppliant to prepare for death. 

On the fifteenth of July, one thousand six hundred and 
eighty-five, this unfortunate favorite of the people was brought 
out to die on Tower Hill. The crowd was immense, and the 
tops of all the houses were covered with gazers. He had 
seen his wife, the daughter of the Duke of Buccleuch, in the 
Tower, and had talked much of a lady whom he loved far 
better — the Lady Hakriet Wentworth — who was one of 
the last persons he remembered in this life. Before laying 
down his head upon the block he felt the edge of the axe, 
and told the executioner that he feared it was not sharp 
enough, and that the axe was not heavy enough. On the 
executioner replying that it was of the proper kind, the Duke 
said, "I pray } r ou have a care, and do not use me so awk- 
wardly as you used my Lord Russell." The executioner, 
made nervous by this, and trembling, struck once and merely 
gashed him in the neck. Upon this, the Duke of Monmouth 
raised his head and looked the man reproachfully in the face. 
Then he struck twice, and then thrice, and then threw down 
the axe, and cried out in a voice of horror that he could not 
finish that work. The sheriffs, however, threatening him 
with what should be done to himself if he did not, he took it 
up again and struck a fourth time and a fifth time. Then 
the wretched head at last fell off, and James, Duke of Mon- 
mouth, was dead, in the thirty-sixth } T ear of his age. He 
was a show}' graceful man, with many popular qualities, and 
had found much favor in the open hearts of the English. 

The atrocities, committed by the Government, which fol- 
lowed this Monmouth rebellion, form the blackest and most 
lamentable page in English history. The poor peasants, 
having been dispersed with great loss, and their leaders hav- 
ing been taken, one would think that the implacable King 
might have been satisfied. But no ; he let loose upon them, 



458 A CHILD'S HISTOKY OF ENGLAND. 

among other intolerable monsters, a Colonel Kirk, who 
had served against the Moors, and whose soldiers — called 
by the people Kirk's lambs, because they bore a lamb upon 
their flag, as the emblem of Christianity — were worthy of 
their leader. The atrocities committed by these demons in 
human shape are far too horrible to be related here. It is 
enough to say, that besides most ruthlessly murdering and 
robbing them, and ruining them by making them bu} r their 
pardons at the price of all they possessed, it was one of Kirk's 
favorite amusements, as he and his officers sat drinking after 
dinner, and toasting the King, to have batches of prisoners 
hanged outside the windows for the company's diversion ; 
and that when their feet quivered in the convulsions of death, 
he used to swear that they should have music to their danc- 
ing, and would order the drums to beat and the trumpets to 
play. The detestable King informed him, as an acknowledg- 
ment of these services, that he was " very well satisfied with 
his proceedings." But the King's great delight was in the 
proceedings of Jeffreys, now a peer, who went down into the 
west, with four other judges, to toy persons accused of having 
had any share in the rebellion. The King pleasantly called 
this " Jeffrey s's campaign." The people down in that part 
of the country remember it to this day as the Bloody Assize. 
It began at Winchester, where a poor deaf old ladj', Mrs. 
Alicia Lisle, the widow of one of the judges of Charles 
the First (who had been murdered abroad by some Baalist 
assassins), was charged with having given shelter in her 
house to two fugitives from Sedgemoor. Three times the 
jury refused to find her guilty, until Jeffreys bullied and 
frightened them into that false verdict. When he had ex- 
torted it from them, he said, " Gentlemen, if I had been one 
of you, and she had been my own mother, I would have 
found her guilty ; " — as I dare say he would. He sentenced 
her to be burned alive, that very afternoon. The clergy of 
the cathedral and some others interfered in her favor, and 
she was beheaded within a week. As a high mark of his 



JAMES THE SECOND. 459 

approbation, the King made Jeffreys Lord Chancellor ; and 
he then went on to Dorchester, to Exeter, to Taunton, and 
to Wells. It is astonishing, when we read of the enormous 
injustice and barbarit} T of this beast, to know that no one 
struck him dead on the judgment-seat. It was enough for 
an} T man or woman to be accused by an enemy, before 
Jeffre3 r s, to be found guilty of high treason. One man who 
pleaded not guilty, he ordered to be taken out of court upon 
the instant, and hanged ; and this so terrified the prisoners 
in general that they mostly pleaded guilty at once. At Dor- 
chester alone, in the course of a few da} T s, Jeffre}'s hanged 
eighty people ; besides whipping, transporting, imprisoning, 
and selling as slaves, great numbers. He executed, in all, 
twp hundred and fifty, or three hundred. 

These executions took place, among the neighbors and 
friends of the sentenced, in thirty-six towns and villages. 
Their bodies were mangled, steeped in caldrons of boiling 
pitch and tar, and hung up b}' the roadsides, in the streets, 
over the very churches. The sight and smell of heads and 
limbs, the hissing and bubbling of the infernal caldrons, and 
the tears and terrors of the people, were dreadful be3 T ond all 
description. One rustic, who was forced to steep the remains 
in the black pot, was ever afterwards called " Tom Boilman." 
The hangman has ever since been called Jack Ketch, because 
a man of that name went hanging and hanging, all da} T long, 
in the train of Jeffreys. You will hear much of the horrors 
of the great French Revolution. Many and terrible they 
were, there is no doubt ; but I know of nothing worse, 
done by the maddened people of France in that awful 
time, than was done by the highest judge in England, with 
the express approval of the King of England, in The Bloody 
Assize. 

Nor was even this all. Jeffrej's was as fond of mone} r for 
himself as of miseiy for others, and he sold pardons whole- 
sale to fill his pockets. The King ordered, at one time, a 
thousand prisoners to be given to certain of his favorites, in 



460 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

order that they might bargain with them for their pardons. 
The young ladies of Taunton who had presented the Bible, 
were bestowed upon the maids of honor at court ; and those 
precious ladies made very hard bargains with them indeed. 
When The Bloody Assize was at its most dismal height, the 
King was diverting himself with horse-races in the very place 
where Mrs. Lisle had been executed. When Jeffreys had 
done his worst, and came home again, he was particularly 
complimented in the Royal Gazette ; and when the King 
heard that through drunkenness and raging he was very ill, 
his odious Majesty remarked that such another man could 
not easily be found in England. Besides all this, a former 
sheriff of London, named Cornish, was hanged within sight 
of his own house, after an abominably conducted trial, for 
having had a share in the Rye House Plot, on evidence 
given by Rumsey, which that villain was obliged to confess 
was directty opposed to the evidence he had given on the 
trial of Lord Russell. And on the very same day, a worthy 
widow, named Elizabeth Gaunt, was burned alive at. Ty- 
burn, for having sheltered a wretch who himself gave evidence 
against her. She settled the fuel about herself with her own 
hands, so that the flames should reach her quickly ; and 
nobly said, with her last breath, that she had obeyed the 
sacred command of God, to give refuge to the outcast, and 
not to betray the wanderer. 

After all this hanging, beheading, burning, boiling, muti- 
lating, exposing, robbing, transporting, and selling into sla- 
very, of his unhappy subjects, the King not unnaturally 
thought that he could do whatever he would. So, he went 
to work to change the religion of the country with all possi- 
ble speed ; and what he did was this. 

He first of all tried to get rid of what was called the Test 
Act — which prevented the Catholics from holding public em- 
ployments — by his own power of dispensing w r ith the pen- 
alties. He tried it in one case, and, eleven of the twelve 
judges deciding in his favor, he exercised it in three others, 



JAMES THE SECOND. 461 

being those of three dignitaries of University College, Ox- 
ford, who had become Papists, and whom he kept in their 
places and sanctioned. He revived the hated Ecclesiastical 
Commission, to get rid of Compton, Bishop of London, who 
manfully opposed him. He solicited the Pope to favor Eng- 
land with an ambassador, which the Pope (who was a sensi- 
ble man then) rather unwillingly did. He flourished Father 
Petre before the e} T es of the people on all possible occasions. 
He favored the establishment of convents in several parts of 
London. He was delighted to have the streets, and even 
the court itself, filled with Monks and Friars in the habits 
of their orders. He constantly endeavored to make Catho- 
lics of the Protestants about him. He held private inter- 
views, which he called " closetings," with those Members of 
Parliament who held offices, to persuade them to consent to 
the design he had in view. When they did not consent, 
they were removed, or resigned of themselves, and their 
places were given to Catholics. He displaced Protestant 
officers from the army, by every means in his power, and 
got Catholics into their places too. He tried the same thing 
with the corporations, and also (though not so successfully) 
with the Lord Lieutenants of counties. To terrify the peo- 
ple into the endurance of all these measures, he kept an army 
of fifteen thousand men encamped on Hounslow Heath, 
where mass was openly performed in the General's tent, and 
where priests went among the soldiers endeavoring to per- 
suade them to become Catholics. For circulating a paper 
among those men advising them to be true to their religion, 
a Protestant clerg} T man, named Johnson, the chaplain of the 
late Lord Russell, was actually sentenced to stand three 
times in the pillory, and was actually whipped from Newgate 
to Tyburn. He dismissed his own brother-in-law from his 
Council because he was a Protestant, and made a Privy 
Councillor of the before-mentioned Father Petre. He handed 
Ireland OA r er to Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnell, a 
worthless, dissolute knave, who played the same game there 



462 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

for his master, and who played the deeper game for himself 
of one day putting it under the protection of the French 
King. In going to these extremities, every man of sense 
and judgment among the Catholics, from the Pope to a 
porter, knew that, the King was a mere bigoted fool, who 
would undo himself and the cause he sought to advance ; 
but he was deaf to all reason, and, happily for England 
ever afterwards, went tumbling off his throne in his own 
blind way. 

A spirit began to arise in the country, which the besotted 
blunderer little expected. He first found it out in the Uni- 
versity of Cambridge. Having made a Catholic, a dean, at 
Oxford, without any opposition, he tried to make a monk a 
master of arts at Cambridge : which attempt the University 
resisted, and defeated him. He then went back to his favor- 
ite Oxford. On the death of the President of Magdalen Col- 
lege, he commanded that there should be elected to succeed 
him, one Mr. Anthony Farmer, whose only recommenda- 
tion was, that he was of the King's religion. The Univer- 
sity plucked up courage at last, and refused. The King 
substituted another man, and it still refused, resolving to 
stand by its own election of a Mr. Hough. The dull tyrant, 
upon this, punished Mr. Hough, and five-and-twenty more, 
by causing them to be expelled and declared incapable 
of holding any church preferment ; then he proceeded to 
what he supposed to be his highest step, but to what was, in 
fact, his last plunge head-foremost in his tumble off his 
throne. 

He had issued a declaration that there should be no reli- 
gious tests or penal laws, in order to let in the Catholics more 
easily ; but the Protestant dissenters, unmindful of them- 
selves, had gallantly joined the regular church in opposing it 
tooth and nail. The King and Father Petre now resolved to 
have this read, on a certain Sunday, in all the churches, and 
to order it to be circulated for that purpose by the bishops. 
The latter took counsel with the Archbishop of Canterbury, 



JAMES THE SECOND. 463 

who was in disgrace ; and the} 7 resolved that the declaration 
should not be read, and that they would petition the. King 
against it. The Archbishop himself wrote out the petition, 
and six bishops went into the King's bedchamber the same 
night to present it, to his infinite astonishment. Next day 
was the Sunday fixed for the reading, and it was only read 
by two hundred clergymen out of ten thousand. The King 
resolved against all advice to prosecute the bishops in the 
Court of King's Bench, and within three weeks they were 
summoned before the Privy Council, and committed to the 
Tower. As the six bishops were taken to that dismal place, 
by water, the people who were assembled in immense num- 
bers fell upon their knees, and wept for them, and prayed for 
thyem. When they got to the Tower, the officers and soldiers 
on guard besought them for their blessing. While they were 
confined there, the soldiers every da} T drank to their release 
with loud shouts. When they were brought up to the Court 
of King's Bench for their trial, which the Attorney-General 
said was for the high offence of censuring the Government, 
and giving their opinion about affairs of state, they were at- 
tended by similar multitudes, and surrounded by a throng of 
noblemen and gentlemen. When the jury went out at seven 
o'clock at night to consider of their verdict, everybody (ex- 
cept the King) knew that they would rather starve than yield 
to the King's brewer, who was one of them, and wanted a 
verdict for his customer. When they came into court next 
morning, after resisting the brewer all night, and gave a ver- 
dict of not guilty, such a shout rose up in Westminster Hall 
as it had never heard before ; and it was passed on among 
the people away to Temple Bar, and away again to the Tower. 
It did not pass only to the east, but passed to the west too, 
until it reached the camp at Hounslow, where the fifteen 
thousand soldiers took it up and echoed it. And still, when 
the dull King, who was then with Lord Feversham, heard 
the mighty roar, asked in alarm what it was, and was told 
that it was "nothing but the acquittal of the bishops," he 



464 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

said, in his dogged way, "Call you that nothing? It is so 
much the worse for them." 

Between the petition and the trial, the Queen had given 
birth to a son, which Father Petre rather thought was owing 
to Saint Winifred. But I doubt if Saint Winifred had 
much to do with it as the King's friend, inasmuch as the 
entirely new prospect of a Catholic successor (for both the 
King's daughters were Protestants) determined the Earls of 
Shrewsbury, Danby, and Devonshire, Lord Lumley, the 
Bishop of London, Admiral Russell, and Colonel Sidney, 
to invite the Prince of Orange over to England. The Royal 
Mole, seeing his danger at last, made, in his fright, many 
concessions, besides raising an army of forty thousand men ; 
but the Prince of Orange was not a man for James the Second 
to cope with. His preparations were extraordinarily vigorous, 
and his mind was resolved. 

For a fortnight after the Prince was ready to sail for 
England, a great wind from the west prevented the departure 
of his fleet. Even when the wind lulled, and it did sail, it 
was dispersed by a storm, and was obliged to put back to 
refit. At last, on the first of November, one thousand six 
hundred and eighty-eight, the Protestant east wind, as it was 
long called, began to blow ; and on the third, the people of 
Dover and the people of Calais saw a fleet twent} r miles long 
sailing gallantly by, between the two places. On Monday, 
the fifth, it anchored at Torba}^ in Devonshire, and the Prince, 
with a splendid retinue of officers and men, marched into 
Exeter. But the people in that western part of the country 
had suffered so much in The Bloody Assize, that they had 
lost heart. Few people joined him ; and he began to think 
of returning, and publishing the invitation he had received 
from those lords, as his justification for having come at all. 
At this crisis, some of the gentry joined him ; the Royal 
army began to falter ; an engagement was signed, by which 
all who set their hand to it declared that the}' would support 
one another in defence of the laws and liberties of the three 



JAMES THE SECOND. 465 

Kingdoms, of the Protestant religion, and of the Prince of 
Orange. From that time, the cause received no check ; the 
greatest towns in England began, one after another, to de- 
clare for the Prince ; and he knew that it was all safe with 
him when the University of Oxford offered to melt down its 
plate, if he wanted any money. 

By this time the king was running about in a pitiable way, 
touching people for the King's evil in one place, reviewing 
his troops in another, and bleeding from the nose in a third. 
The young Prince was sent to Portsmouth, Father Petre went 
off like a shot to France, and there was a general and swift 
dispersal of all the priests and friars. One after another, 
the King's most important officers and friends deserted him 
anc}, went over to the Prince. In the night, his daughter 
Anne fled from Whitehall Palace ; and the Bishop of London, 
who had once been a soldier, rode before her with a drawn 
sword in his hand, and pistols at his saddle. "God help 
me," cried the miserable King: "my very children have for- 
saken me ! " In his wildness, after debating with such lords 
as were in London, whether he should or should not call a 
Parliament, and after naming three of them to negotiate 
with the Prince, he resolved to fly to France. He had 
the little Prince of Wales brought back from Portsmouth ; 
and the child and the Queen crossed the river to Lam- 
beth in an open boat, on a miserable wet night, and got 
safely away. This was on the night of the ninth of De- 
cember. 

At one o'clock on the morning of the eleventh, the King, 
who had, in the meantime, received a letter from the Prince 
of Orange, stating his objects, got out of bed, told Lord 
Northumberland who lay in his room, not to open the door 
until the usual hour in the morning, and went down the back 
stairs (the same, I suppose, by which the priest in the wig 
and gown had come up to his brother) and crossed the river 
in a small boat : sinking the great seal of England by the 
way. Horses having been provided, he rode, accompanied 

30 



466 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

by Sir Edward Hales, to Feversham, where he embarked 
in a Custom House Hoy. The master of this Hoy, wanting 
more ballast, ran into the Isle of Sheppy to get it, where the 
fishermen and smugglers crowded about the boat, and in- 
formed the King of their suspicions that he was a "hatchet- 
faced Jesuit. " As they took his money and would not let 
him go, he told them who he was, and that the Prince of 
Orange wanted to take his life ; and he began to scream for 
a boat — and then to ciy, because he had lost a piece of 
wood on his ride which he called a fragment of Our Saviour's 
cross. He put himself into the hands of the Lord Lieuten- 
ant of the county, and his detention was made known to 
the Prince of Orange at Windsor — who, only wanting to get 
rid of him, and not caring where he went, so that he went 
awa} r , was very much disconcerted that they did not let 
him go. However, there was nothing for it but to have him 
brought back, with some state in the way of Life Guards, to 
Whitehall. And as soon as he got there, in his infatuation, 
he heard mass, and set a Jesuit to say grace at his public 
dinner. 

The people had been thrown into the strangest state of 
confusion b}^ his flight, and had taken it into their heads that 
the Irish part of the army were going to murder the Protes- 
tants. Therefore, they set the bells a ringing, and lighted 
watch-fires, and burned Catholic Chapels, and looked about 
in all directions for Father Petre and the Jesuits, while the 
Pope's ambassador was running away in the dress of a foot- 
man. They found no Jesuits ; but a man, who had once 
been a frightened witness before Jeffreys in court, saw a 
swollen drunken face looking through a window down at 
Wapping, which he well remembered. The face was in a 
sailor's dress, but he knew it to be the face of that ac- 
cursed Judge, and he seized him. The people, to their 
lasting honor, did not tear him to pieces. After knock- 
ing him about a little, they took him, in the basest agonies 
of terror, to the Lord Mayor, who sent him, at his own 



JAMES THE SECOND. 467 

shrieking petition, to the Tower for safety. There, he 
died. 

Their bewilderment continuing, the people now lighted 
bonfires and made rejoicings, as if they had any reason to be 
glad to have the King back again. But, his stay was very 
short, for the English guards were removed from Whitehall, 
Dutch guards were marched up to it, and he was told by one 
of his late ministers that the Prince would enter London next 
da}', and he had better go to Ham. He said, Ham was a 
cold damp place, and he would rather go to Rochester. He 
thought himself very cunning in this, as he meant to escape 
from Rochester to France. The Prince of Orange and his 
friends knew that, perfectly well, and desired nothing more. 
So,/he went to Gravesend, in his royal barge, attended by 
certain lords, and watched by Dutch troops, and pitied by the 
generous people, who were far more forgiving than he had 
ever been, when they saw him in his humiliation. On the 
night of the twenty-third of December, not even then under- 
standing that everybody wanted to get rid of him, he went 
out, absurdly, through his Rochester garden, down to the 
Medway, and got away to France, where he rejoined the 
Queen. 

There had been a council in his absence, of the lords, and 
the authorities of London. When the Prince came, on the 
day after the King's departui^, he summoned the Lords to 
meet him, and soon afterwards, all those who had served in 
any of the Parliaments of King Charles the Second. It 
was finally resolved by these authorities that the throne 
was vacant by the conduct of King James the Second ; 
that it was inconsistent with the safety and welfare of 
this Protestant kingdom, to be governed by a Popish 
prince ; that the Prince and Princess of Orange should 
be King and Queen during their lives and the life of the 
survivor of them ; and that their children should suc- 
ceed them, if the}* had any. That if they had none, the 
Princess Anne and her children should succeed; that if 



468 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

she had none, the heirs of the Prince of Orange should 
succeed. 

On the thirteenth of January, one thousand six hundred 
and eighty-nine, the Prince and Princess, sitting on a throne 
in Whitehall, bound themselves to these conditions. The 
Protestant religion was established in England, and England's 
great and glorious Revolution was complete. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

I HAve now arrived at the close of my little history. The 
events which succeeded the famous Revolution of one thousand 
six hundred and eighty-eight, would neither be easily related 
nor easily understood in such a book as this. 

William and Mary reigned together, five years. After the 
death of his good wife, William occupied the throne, alone, 
for seven years longer. During his reign, on the sixteenth 
of September, one thousand seven hundred and one, the poor 
weak creature who had once been James the Second of Eng- 
land, died in France. In the meantime he had done his 
utmost (which was not much) to cause William to be assassi- 
nated, and to regain his lost dominions. James's son was 
declared, by the French King, the rightful King of England ; 
and was called in France The Chevalier Saint George, 
and in England The Pretender. Some infatuated people in 
England, and particularly in Scotland, took up the Pretender's 
cause from time to time — as if the country had not had Stu- 
arts enough ! — and many lives were sacrificed, and much 
misery was occasioned. King William died on Sunday, the 
seventh of March, one thousand seven hundred and two, of 
the consequences of an accident occasioned by his horse 
stumbling with him. He was always a brave patriotic prince, 



CONCLUSION. 469 

and a man of remarkable abilities. His manner was cold, 
and he made but few friends ; but he had truly loved his 
queen. When he was dead, a lock of her hair, in a ring, was 
found tied with a black ribbon round his left arm. 

He was succeeded by the Princess Anne, a popular Queen, 
who reigned twelve }*ears. In her reign, in the month of 
May, one thousand seven hundred and seven, the union be- 
tween England and Scotland was effected, and the two coun- 
tries were incorporated under the name of Great Britain. 
Then, from the year one thousand seven hundred and four- 
teen to the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty, 
reigned the four Georges. 

It was in the reign of George the Second, one thousand 
seven hundred and forty-five, that the Pretender did his last 
mischief, and made his last appearance. Being an old man 
by that time, he and the Jacobites — as his friends were 
called — put forward his son, Charles Edward, known as 
the Young Chevalier. The Highlanders of Scotland, an ex- 
tremely troublesome and wrong-headed race on the subject of 
the Stuarts, espoused his cause, and he joined them, and 
there was a Scottish rebellion to make him king, in which 
many gallant and devoted gentlemen lost their lives. It was a 
hard matter for Charles Edward to escape abroad again, with 
a high price on his head ; but the Scottish people were ex- 
traordinarily faithful to him, and, after undergoing many 
romantic adventures, not unlike those of Charles the Second, 
he escaped to France. A number of charming stories and 
delightful songs arose out of the Jacobite feelings, and belong 
to the Jacobite times. Otherwise I think the Stuarts were a 
public nuisance altogether. 

It was in the reign of George the Third that England lost 
North America, by persisting in taxing her without her own 
consent. That immense country, made independent under 
Washington, and left to itself, became the United States ; 
one of the greatest nations of the earth. In these times in 
which I write, it is honorably remarkable for protecting its 



470 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

subjects, wherever they may travel, with a dignit}' and a de- 
termination which is a model for England. Between you and 
me, England has rather lost ground in this respect since the 
days of Oliver Cromwell. 

The union of Great Britain with Ireland — which had been 
getting on very ill by itself — took place in the reign of 
George the Third, on the second of July, one thousand seven 
hundred and ninety-eight. 

William the Fourth succeeded George the Fourth, in the 
year one thousand eight hundred and thirt} T , and reigned 
seven years. Queen Victoria, his niece, the only child of 
the Duke of Kent, the fourth son of George the Third, came 
to the throne on the twentieth of June, one thousand eight 
hundred and thirty-seven. She was married to Prince Al- 
bert of Saxe Gotha on the tenth of February, one thousand 
eight hundred and forty. She is very good, and much 
beloved. So I end, like the crier, with 

God save the Queen I 



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